California volleyball will welcome a pair of ACC powerhouses to Haas Pavilion this coming weekend, facing off with No. 10 SMU on Friday night and clashing with No. 3 Pitt on Sunday at noon. Both matches will be streamed on ACCNX and will be the first time that the Golden Bears have hosted either team at Haas Pavilion.
 
Last weekend, the Bears snapped a five-match losing streak with a sweep over Duke at home, as Peyton DeJardin (14 kills, .364) and Arissa Carbonara (11 kills, .320) led the attack while Sophia Johnson (17 digs) and Mikayla Hayden (five blocks) commanded the defense. Two days later, Cal was swept in turn by No. 15 North Carolina, despite another standout defensive effort from Johnson as she recorded 10 digs and was 14-for-14 on serve-receive.
 
Vs. No. 10 SMU (19-5, 11-3 ACC): Friday, Nov. 14 – 7 p.m. PT (Berkeley)
Live Stream: ACCNX
Live Stats: StatBroadcast
Tickets: CalBears.com
Last Meeting: Oct. 20, 2024 (at SMU – SMU won 3-1)
Last Home Meeting: None
Bears vs. Mustangs All-Time Record: 1-1
Current Streak: SMU won last one
 
The Mustangs are one of the top offensive teams in the nation, hitting .299 on the year with 12.68 assists per set, and are also fierce on defense with 2.64 blocks per set. Five-time ACC Setter of the Week Averi Carlson is third in the nation with 11.02 assists per set on 1,003 total assists, while 2024 All-America Honorable Mention Malaya Jones is posting her best season yet with 363 kills at a blistering .365 pace. Middle blockers Favor Anyanwu and Natalia Newsome have also had red-hot 2025 campaigns, with Anyanwu posting a 1.44 blocks-per-set average for a top-20 national ranking as well as a .406 hitting percentage and Newsome leading the ACC on .456 hitting. SMU's biggest threat at the service line is Christa Wilburn, who has recorded 38 aces (0.43 per set) on the year.
 
Vs. No. 3 Pitt (21-3, 13-1 ACC): Sunday, Nov. 16 – Noon PT (Berkeley)
Live Stream: ACCNX
Live Stats: StatBroadcast
Tickets: CalBears.com
Last Meeting: Oct. 18, 2024 (at Pitt – Pitt won 3-0)
Last Home Meeting: None
Bears vs. Panthers All-Time Record: 4-3
Current Streak: North Carolina won last one
 
The Panthers are posting another outstanding season after reaching the Final Four in the 2024 NCAA Tournament, hitting .301 as a team for the sixth-highest hitting percentage in the nation and holding opponents to a combined .170 while posting 2.80 blocks per set (12th best in the country). Junior Olivia Babcock, the 2024 AVCA National Player of the Year, who averages 5.11 kills per set – fifth-best in the nation – with 450 kills on the year as well as 0.36 service aces per set. Three-time ACC Setter of the Week Brooke Mosher ranks 44th in the country with 9.68 assists per set and is tied with Babcock in aces per set, a national top-eight pace, while 2024 Second-Team All-American Bre Kelley acts as Pitt's lockdown defender with 1.46 blocks per set (15th in the national standings).
 
 
SALUTE TO SCOTT
Middle blocker Sophie Scott was selected as one of two October winners of the CalHOPE Courage Award, which was established in 2022 by CalHOPE in conjunction with the Associated Press (AP) and College Sports Communicators (CSC) to celebrate student-athletes at California colleges and universities who have overcome adversity and mental trauma that arises from personal hardships and injury. Scott, who joined the Bears in 2022, has undergone four knee surgeries in six years, including three in the last year-and-a-half, to repair serious injuries to both her ACLs, both menisci and her left MCL. As a result, she missed her entire high school senior year, as well as the first half of her college sophomore year and her entire junior season, but has repeatedly worked her way back to aid the team however she can, be it from the sidelines or on the court. Scott has started five matches for Cal this year, including the Bears' last three.
 
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 is currently 81^st in the nation with 1.20 blocks per set and is tied for 68^th in the country with 109 bocks on the year, bringing her career total to 372 for eighth-most all-time at Cal.
 
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. Johnson posted another outstanding weekend on the road on Oct. 31 and Nov. 2, averaging 5.86 digs per set over two matches and collecting a career-high 26 digs at NC State – the most by any ACC player in a four-set match this season and the second-most by an ACC player in a match of any length this year.

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.

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 Nov. 10, Popescu has played in every set of the Bears' season and leads the team in service aces, while Știrbu took over in mid-September as Cal's full-time starting setter and Phills has started in all but three of Cal's matches this season.


STAY POSTED
For complete coverage of Cal volleyball, please follow the Bears on X (@CalVolleyball), Instagram (@calvolleyball), Facebook (Cal Volleyball) and TikTok (@calbearsvb).