BERKELEY – California volleyball will host its final two-game homestand this week with a pair of competitive opponents coming to town. The Golden Bears (15-10, 4-10 Pac-12) will face Oregon State (9-15, 4-10) on Thursday at 7 p.m. PT for its annual Military Tribute Night, followed by a matchup with No. 6 Oregon (21-4, 11-3) on Saturday at 11 a.m.
 
Fans can watch Thursday's match on Pac-12 Bay Area. There will be no stream on Saturday.
 
Cal is 51-30 all-time against the Beavers, including a five-set win earlier this year in Corvallis, Oregon. In that matchup, Oregon State outside hitter Mychael Vernon led both teams with 23 kills; she currently ranks fifth in the Pac-12 with 344 on the year. The Beavers have proven themselves a tough out this season, having forced five sets in 10 matches this year and securing a win over then-No. 6 Washington State on the road. They are one of the conference's top statistical teams in digs (second), kills (third) and assists (third).
 
The Bears lead the all-time series over the Ducks, 53-34, but have lost the past eight of those matches. Oregon is on a four-game winning streak and ranks among the nation's top-10 squads with 14.16 kills per set, 13.21 assists per set, 2.78 blocks per set and a .289 hitting percentage. Four Ducks rank among Division I's top-50 players in a combined seven statistical categories, including middle blocker Kara McGhee, who posted 14 kills on .667 hitting against Cal in the last matchup between the two teams to bolster her top-four season percentage of .444.
 
Cal's last win against a top-10 team at home was on Oct. 14, 2011 with a four-set victory over No. 2 Washington. Their last overall top-10 victory happened one year later on Nov. 2, 2012 against No. 2 Oregon, which went to five sets.
 
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 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 her fourth award win, 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 second among all Division I freshmen with 362 total kills (40th all D-I/3rd Pac-12); third with 3.98 kills per set (39th D-I/4th Pac-12) and 406.5 points (54th D-I/4th Pac-12; and fourth with 4.47 points per set (49th D-I/4th Pac-12). She also leads the team with nine double-doubles on the year while having the second most digs (225) and aces (30) on the roster.
 
DESA DOMINATES
Senior libero Tara DeSa currently leads the Pac-12 with 4.42 digs per set (0.21 ahead of second place) and 402 digs (41 ahead of second place) to anchor a Cal defense that is third best in the Pac-12 with a .190 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 12 of the 2023 season, she is sixth in program history with 1,250 career digs.
 
MAEDER'S MARK
Junior setter Annalea Maeder crossed the 2,000 career assists mark against Utah (Sept. 24), entering this weekend with 2,368 to her name – eighth-most at Cal all-time. Having totaled 831 assists so far on the year, she is on pace to smash her 2022 season total of 846. Maeder is currently second on the team with eight double-doubles this season and has posted 30 or more assists in 14 of Cal's 25 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 12, Maeder leads the team in both assists and service aces (34), is third in digs (216) and is fourth in total blocks (34). She needs only two more aces for 101 on her career, which would put her in a tie for 10th most in program history.
 
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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