California volleyball will look for its first road wins against the Arizona schools since 2019 this weekend, starting with a rematch against No. 21 Arizona State in Tempe, Arizona, on Friday at 6 p.m. PT followed by a showdown against Arizona in Tucson, Arizona, on Sunday at noon.
 
The Golden Bears (14-7, 3-7 Pac-12) lost in five sets to the Sun Devils (19-3, 7-3 Pac-12) earlier this month and defeated the Wildcats (6-15, 1-9) in four sets in late September, both at Haas Pavilion.
 
Cal is 34-41 against Arizona State all-time. The Sun Devils have wildly exceeded expectations this season after being picked to finish 10th in the preseason Pac-12 poll, currently sitting in a tie for third in the conference standings. Nationally, they rank 10th with 2.08 aces per set and a .288 team hitting percentage. Senior OH Marta Levinska gave the Bears trouble in the last meeting between the two teams, posting 30 kills on .482 hitting. She currently ranks 16th in the nation with 5.09 points per set and 21st with 4.30 kills per set. Classmate Shannon Shields recorded 54 assists against the Bears and is 39th in Division I with 10.25 assists per set.
 
The Wildcats are currently on a five-match losing streak and have already lost to Cal once this season, but rank second in the conference with 1,069 total digs. Their top offensive performer against the Bears was senior OH Sofia Maldonado Diaz with 16 kills; she currently leads the team with a 278 hitting percentage on the season. Sophomore S Ana Heath has a team-high 722 assists on the year and led the way with 33 against Cal. Arizona has the all-time series lead over Cal by a margin of 47-28.
 
LI LEADS
Freshman outside hitter Xuemeng (Maggie) Li has already cemented her name in the Cal record books as she is the first player in program history to win Pac-12 honors in consecutive weeks, as well as the Bears' first four-time Pac-12 Freshman of the Week. She earned Cal's first Pac-12 weekly honor since 2019 – and its first rookie honor since 2018 – after the Bears' first three matches of the season. Li totaled 34 kills and 27 digs with a .313 hitting percentage at the Army Invitational, earning her way onto the all-tournament team. The next week, Li added two stellar matches to her season with a 20-kill, nine-dig performance against Portland State and a 13-kill outing on .579 hitting against Southern Utah, earning her second Pac-12 Freshman of the Week honor – the first Golden Bear to earn the award twice since Christina Higgins in 2011. Li followed that up by posting 61 kills and 50 digs over the next four games, including three straight double-doubles with a 24-kill performance against Texas State, to earn her third consecutive nod and become the first freshman in conference history to start off the season with three straight weekly awards. In her most recent weekly award campaign, she totaled 21 kills and 13 digs on .340 hitting in the win over Arizona to help Cal break a 57-match Pac-12 losing streak, then posted another 19 kills against No. 25 Arizona State. Currently, she ranks second among all NCAA freshmen with 320 total kills (27th NCAA/3rd Pac-12), 4.10 kills per set (29th NCAA/4th Pac-12) and 359.0 points (39th NCAA/4th Pac-12). She also leads the team with eight double-doubles on the year while posting the second-most digs on the roster (199).
 
DESA DOMINATES
Senior libero Tara DeSa currently leads the Pac-12 with 4.45 digs per set (0.43 ahead of second place) and 347 digs (61 ahead of second place) to anchor a Cal defense that is third best in the Pac-12 with a .178 opponent hitting percentage. She recorded her first career double-double (10 assists, 16 digs) in September against Montana State and has two All-Tournament nods (including an Army Invitational MVP) to her name this season. DeSa had her best full year at libero in her third season with the Bears, ranking third in the Pac-12 with 448 total digs and fourth in the conference with 4.00 digs per set. A three-time all-tournament team member, she became just the 11th Golden Bear ever to record 30 or more digs in a single match with a 32-dig effort against Arizona (Nov. 17) – just one shy of the program record. DeSa also posted 118 assists, third most on the team. Entering Week Ten of the 2023 season, she is eighth in program history with 1,195 career digs.
 
MAEDER'S MARK
Junior setter Annalea Maeder crossed the 2,000 career assists mark against Utah (Sept. 24), entering this weekend with 2,271 to her name (10th-most at Cal all-time and needs six to move into ninth place). Having totaled 734 assists so far on the year, she is on pace to smash her 2022 season total of 846. On Sept. 8, she set a new career high of 53 assists against Southeastern Louisiana then posted 54 later that day against Texas State. As of Week Ten, Maeder leads the team in both assists and service aces (30), is third in digs (182) and is fourth in total blocks (30).
 
NEW COACH ON THE BLOCK
Twenty-six-year-old Crissy Jones Schoonderwoerd stepped into the interim head coach role for the Golden Bears and powered them to an 11-0 start – undefeated in nonconference play – and also led Cal to its first win over USC since 2014 after being hired as an assistant in February 2023. She previously acted as assistant coach for Cal Poly beach volleyball in 2020 while finding success on the AVP and FIVB circuits as a player. In her collegiate career at Washington and later at Cal Poly, she became just the second player in NCAA history to earn All-American honors for both indoor and beach volleyball. Jones Schoonderwoerd is joined on the staff by two first-year assistant coaches in Cal alumna Savannah Rennie and AVP pro Billy Allen.
 
WELCOME TO BEAR TERRITORY
Five newcomers joined the Bears in 2023. Setter Paige Morningstar (Pittsburgh), a redshirt sophomore who spent her first two years with Louisville, came to Berkeley with NCAA Tournament experience under her belt and an impressive high school résumé that includes multiple National High School Female Athlete of the Year honors and four state championships. Outside hitter Xuemeng (Maggie) Li (Beijing) has experience as a member of the Chinese Women's National U20 and II Teams, while Ashley Li (Diamond Bar) was selected to the Division 2 All-CIF Southern Section Team. Sawyer Thomsen (Lawrence, Kansas) and Sophia Johnson (Wayzata, Minnesota) round out the group as highly ranked players in their respective states (Thomsen as the No. 1 middle blocker in Kansas and Johnson as Minnesota's No. 2 libero).
 
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