California volleyball continues the second half of its season this weekend with a trip down south, first taking on Georgia Tech (9-8, 4-4 ACC) in Atlanta on Friday evening before heading to South Carolina to match up with Clemson (12-8, 0-8) on Sunday afternoon. Both visits will be new territory for the Golden Bears (6-12, 3-5 ACC), who have only faced either team at Haas Pavilion or at a neutral site.
 
Last weekend, the Bears recorded their first ranked win in five seasons and their first reverse sweep over a ranked opponent since 1988 with a 3-2 victory over No. 14 Miami, as Mikayla Hayden (12 kills/.450, 10 blocks) recorded her second double-double in three matches and Maria Știrbu posted her fourth double-double with 45 assists and 10 digs. Cal also took Florida State to five sets two days later but fell 2-3 despite four Bears (Peyton DeJardin – 17; Dominique Phills – 16; Hayden – 12; Ashley Li – 10) reaching double-digit kills. For her outstanding performances, Hayden was named the ACC Defensive Player of the Week and made the national Rotation of the Week.
 
At Georgia Tech (9-8, 4-4 ACC): Friday, Oct. 24 – 4 p.m. PT/7 p.m. ET (Atlanta)
Live Stream: ACCNX
Live Stats: StatBroadcast
Last Meeting: Nov. 8, 2024 (at Cal – Georgia Tech won 3-0)
Bears vs. Yellow Jackets All-Time Record: 0-2
 
The Yellow Jackets are flying high after sweeping both of their last two opponents (Wake Forest and NC State) and have already faced a gauntlet of seven teams ranked in the national top 25, including a four-set win over No. 17 Purdue. Georgia Tech ranks last in the ACC in opponent hitting percentage, allowing foes to hit an average of .240 on the year, but it also ranks third in assists per set (12.89) and is one of Division I 's top-50 teams in blocks per set (2.50). All-around threat Bianca Garibaldi leads the conference with 1.63 blocks per set in ACC play and is 41st in Division I with 1.31 blocks per set on the year while also hitting .371 with 109 kills, aided by the efforts of setter Heloise Soares (8.81 assists per set). Libero Sofia Velez controls the floor behind them, averaging 3.64 digs per set for the seventh-best rate in the ACC.
 
At Clemson (12-8, 0-8 ACC): Sunday, Oct. 26 – 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET (Clemson, S.C.)
Live Stream: ACCNX
Live Stats: StatBroadcast
Last Meeting: Nov. 9, 2024 (at Cal – Cal won 3-0)
Bears vs. Tigers All-Time Record: 1-0
 
The Tigers went undefeated in nonconference play with victories over Power 4 opponents South Carolina and Georgia but have not won a single match since, hitting just .103 as a team and allowing opponents to hit .294 over the past four weeks. Nevertheless, Clemson's digging game has remained strong as it averages 14.04 digs per set in conference play (fifth best in the ACC) and 15.64 digs per set on the year, the best average of all ACC teams this season. Libero McKenna Gildon ranks eighth in the conference with 3.62 digs per set, while Clemson's offense runs through Kennedy Wagner (3.85 kills per set, 4.31 points per set and Katherine Sandt (9.30 assists per set).
 
 
HAYDEN'S WORLD
Senior middle blocker Mikayla Hayden is posting her best season yet to cap off an impressive collegiate career. After surpassing 300 career blocks early in the season, Hayden became just the third Bear to post a pair of double-digit block performances within a seven-day span, recording 10 blocks each at Syracuse (Oct. 10) and against No. 14 Miami (Oct. 16). Those performances also marked her first two double-doubles since arriving at Cal, as she also totaled 17 kills (.452) against the Orange and 12 kills (.450) against the Hurricanes. Hayden was named the ACC Defensive Player of the Week on Oct. 20 after averaging 1.60 blocks per set against Miami and Florida State the previous weekend, followed by a national Rotation of the Week nod the next day. She currently leads the ACC with 47 total blocks in conference play and is tied for 30th in the nation with 92 on the year and 45th with 1.30 blocks per set. As of Oct. 20, Hayden needs just three more blocks to tie for 10th all-time on the program career list, having posted 355 to date.
 
UPSET ALERT
On Oct. 16, the Bears shocked the volleyball world by pulling out a gritty five-set win over No. 14 Miami at Haas Pavilion, earning their first ranked win since the 2020-21 season against No. 15 Stanford and posting their first reverse sweep over a ranked opponent since 1988, when they defeated No. 11 Pacific.  As a team, Cal held the Hurricanes to just .163 hitting while two Bears - Mikayla Hayden (12 kills, 10 blocks) and Maria Știrbu (45 assists, 10 digs) posted double-doubles. Other top contributors included Peyton DeJardin (19 kills, 5 blocks), Ashley Li (12 kills), Francesca Popescu (10 digs) and Dominique Phills (5 blocks).
 
FOREVER NO. 1
For the first time in program history, the Bears retired the jersey of one of their legends as 2010 American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) National Player of the Year Carli Lloyd had her No. 1 raised into the rafters before the Bears' ACC home opener against Louisville on Oct. 3. An outstanding setter, Lloyd finished her collegiate career (2007-10) with 5,697 assists – sixth-most in Pac-10 history – and 1,094 digs as well as three AVCA All-America honors, leading the Bears to four-straight NCAA Tournament appearances, two Final Fours (2007, 10) and an NCAA title match (2010). Also a dominant attacker, Lloyd holds the program record for the three highest hitting percentages in a four-set match, including a .750 (nine kills, zero errors) outing against Washington State on Nov. 6, 2009. She won a bronze medal with Team USA at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro and won a veritable slew of national titles with club teams all over the world before co-founding League One Volleyball (LOVB) Pro and winning the league championship with LOVB Austin in its inaugural season (2025). Lloyd was inducted into the Cal Athletics Hall of Fame in 2023.
 
INTO THE HALL
Cal Athletics inducted former Golden Bear Hana Čutura into its Hall of Fame in October as the eighth Cal volleyball player to receive the honor. Čutura, who played in Berkeley from 2006-09, is the only Cal player to surpass 2,000 career kills (2,004) and posted 628 as a senior, second only to fellow Cal Hall of Famer Mia Jerkov on the program's single-season list. She was thrice named an AVCA All-American (2007-09) and helped lead the Bears to four-straight NCAA Tournaments, including the team's first Final Four appearance in 2007 (a year in which she was also named the NCAA Tournament Gainsville Regional MVP). Čutura was named the Pac-10 Player of the Year in 2009, becoming just the second Bear in history (Sylvie Monnet, 1983) to receive a conference player of the year award.
 
BIG DIGS FOR JOHNSON
Cal libero Sophia Johnson was named the ACC Defensive Player of the Week on Sept. 29 for her outstanding play in the Bears' ACC-opening weekend at Virginia Tech and Virginia, averaging 5.29 digs per set to bring her string of double-digit digs performances to five and helping her team to its best conference start (2-0) since 2011. It was the first weekly recognition of Johnson's career as well as the first defensive award by any Bear since Kat Brown in 2012.
 
SISTER, SISTER
Senior setter Natalie Lau, who began the 2024 season on the bench but stepped into that year's starting role after five games due to her teammate's season-ending injury, is joined by her sister Elise Lau (a freshman defensive specialist) on the court as one of just three pairs of sisters on the same Power 4 team this season. The Brisbane natives, who played high school ball for St. Ignatius and club ball for Vision, grew up as Cal fans, attending as many volleyball, football and basketball games as they could and dreaming of one day representing the Blue & Gold. According to head coach Jen Malcom, the Laus are "two of the most competitive players on our team." This is the first year that they have played on any team together, having grown up too far apart in age to be part of the same high school or club squads.
 
NEW BEARS ON THE BLOCK
Cal brings seven new players to its roster this season in the form of five freshmen and two transfers, making up nearly half of the Bears' squad.  The first-year players are composed of defensive specialists Francesca Popescu (Johns Creek, Georgia) and Elise Lau (Brisbane), outside hitter Arissa Carbonara (Cuero, Texas), opposite Annemarie O'Gara (Phoenix) and setter Maria Știrbu (Bucharest, Romania). Between them, they bring national team experience (Știrbu), two All-America honors (Popescu), a national title (O'Gara), three All-State honors (Carbonara, Popescu) and a tournament title (Lau). The transfers, sophomore outside hitter Dominique Phills (Iowa) and junior middle blocker Ashleigh Woodruff (Stony Brook), each bring valuable experience to the young roster, bolstering positions that will have at least one player graduating at the end of this season. As of Oct. 20, Popescu has played in every set of the Bears' season and leads the team in service aces, while ?tirbu took over in mid-September as Cal's full-time starting setter and Phills has started in all but one of Cal's matches this season.
 
 
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