BERKELEY – California volleyball will head to Los Angeles this week for its last two-game road trip of the season, facing off with No. 24 USC on Friday at 7 p.m. PT and finishing the weekend at UCLA at noon on Sunday. The Golden Bears are 15-12 (4-12 Pac-12) on the year, most recently coming within two points of an upset over No. 6 Oregon last Saturday.
 
The Trojans (17-9, 11-5) lost to Cal, 1-3, in the last meeting between the two teams but are a perfect 10-0 at home this year and still hold the 68-13 series advantage. USC ranks among Division I's top-50 teams in hitting percentage (.266), total assists (1,328), assists per set (12.65) and total kills (1,408). Outside hitter Skylar Fields led both teams with 22 kills in USC's last matchup with Cal; she is one of the top players in the nation with 5.23 kills per set (second best in the nation) and 5.66 points per set (third best in the nation). A win over the Trojans would give Cal its first season sweep over USC since 1986. The Bears' last win against a top-25 squad - a 3-2 victory over then-No. 15 Stanford - came in the 2020-21 spring season.
 
UCLA (16-10, 8-8) is just 3-5 at home this season but holds a 73-9 all-time advantage over the Bears, including a sweep in Haas Pavilion earlier this year. The Bruins are currently on a three-match win streak, including a five-set victory over then-No. 8 Washington State. Cal's last win over the Bruins - a 3-0 sweep in Los Angeles - was in 2018. As a team, UCLA ranks 23rd in the nation with 2.61 blocks per set and 31st with 258.5 total blocks. Middle blocker Anna Dodson has been sensational for the Bruins, having posted 10 kills on .450 hitting and three blocks in UCLA's last matchup with Cal. She currently ranks 29th in the nation with a .388 hitting percentage on the year and 39th with 1.26 blocks per set.
 
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 and is the Bears' first five-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. For award win number four, 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. Her efforts at No. 21 Arizona State and Arizona a month later – leading the team in kills in both matches – earned her a fifth conference nod to tie for third most in the history of the award. Currently, she ranks third among all Division I freshmen with 394 total kills (40th all D-I/3rd Pac-12) and 442.0 points (53rd D-I/4th Pac-12), fourth with 3.94 kills per set (45th D-I/4th Pac-12) and 406.5 points (54th D-I/4th Pac-12), and fifth with 4.42 points per set (59th D-I/5th Pac-12). She is also tied for the team lead with 10 double-doubles on the year while having the second most aces (33) and third most digs (243) on the roster.
 
DESA DOMINATES
Senior libero Tara DeSa currently leads the Pac-12 with 4.49 digs per set (0.38 ahead of second place) and 449 digs (41 ahead of second place) to anchor a Cal defense that is third best in the Pac-12 with a .194 opponent hitting percentage. DeSa had her best weekend of the 2023 season at home against the Oregon schools, averaging 5.22 digs per set – 15 digs at 3.75 digs per set against Oregon State and 32 digs (6.40 digs per set) against No. 6 Oregon. She is now the only player in program history to have multiple outings of 31 digs or more, having also collected 32 digs (one under the program record) in the Bears' second match against Arizona in 2022. 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. Last year, she ranked third in the Pac-12 with 448 total digs and fourth in the conference with 4.00 digs per set. A three-time 2022 all-tournament team member, her first 32-dig match made her the 11th Golden Bear to join the 32-dig club. Entering Week 13 of the 2023 season, she is sixth in program history with 1,297 career digs.
 
MAEDER'S MARK
Junior setter Annalea Maeder crossed the 2,000 career assists mark against Utah (Sept. 24), entering this weekend with 2,447 to her name – eighth most at Cal all time. Having totaled 910 assists so far on the year, she has already smashed her 2022 total of 846. With a team-leading 39 aces so far, she has collected 104 on her career, seventh most in program history. Maeder is currently tied for a team lead with 10 double-doubles this season; she has posted 30 or more assists in 14 of Cal's 27 matches so far. 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 13, Maeder is also second on the team in digs (247) and fourth in total blocks (38).
 
NEW COACH ON THE BLOCK
Twenty-seven-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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