California volleyball will close out its 2025 campaign this week with one match apiece at home and on the road, first hosting Boston College at Haas Pavilion on Wednesday before traveling to the East Coast to face Duke on Friday. Both matches will be broadcast on ACCNX.
 
Last week, the Golden Bears (7-21, 4-14 ACC) lost in three to No. 5 Stanford twice, first at The Farm on Wednesday and then at Haas Pavilion the following Sunday. Freshman Arissa Carbonara led both teams in the second match with 10 kills, while Dominique Phills paced the Bears with six kills in the first contest. Starting middle blockers Mikayla Hayden and Sophie Scott each had strong outings on Sunday, as Hayden posted eight kills (.500) with three blocks and Scott recorded a season-high six kills.
 
Vs. Boston College (16-14, 5-13 ACC): Wednesday, Nov. 26 – 1 p.m. PT (Berkeley)
Live Stream: ACCNX
Live Stats: StatBroadcast
Tickets: CalBears.com
Last Meeting: Oct. 12, 2025 (at Boston College – Boston College won 3-1)
Last Home Meeting: Oct. 11, 2024 (Boston College won 3-2)
First Meeting: Oct. 11, 2024 (Boston College won 3-2)
Bears vs. Eagles All-Time Record: 0-2
Current Series Streak: Boston College won last two
 
The Eagles are one of the ACC's best and most balanced teams at the service line, averaging 1.64 aces per set as a squad with five members of their 19-woman roster posting a rate of 0.25-plus aces per set. That strength was apparent when Boston College hosted Cal in October, as the Eagles totaled 14 service aces across four sets for their highest total of the season.
 
Boston College's defense relies mainly on its block, as the Eagles rank in the bottom half of the ACC in digs per set (12.54) but are top50 in the nation in blocks per set (2.48). The latter stat is helped by the efforts of freshman Bella Ehrlich, who is averaging 1.28 blocks per set with 1.33 blocks per set in ACC play. She is one of just four rookies to make the top-50 list in Division I and has posted 15 matches with five or more blocks. The team's offense runs through junior attacker Audrey Ross, who is averaging 3.58 kills per set (and a 3.67-per-set average in ACC play) on the year with 22 double-digit performances. Both Ross and Ehrlich found success against the Bears in the last matchup between the two teams, with Ross posting 19 kills on .316 hitting and Ehrlich recording five blocks.
 
The Eagles have lost their last five matches, with their most recent win coming against Georgia Tech at home with a score of 3-1 on Nov. 7. They are 5-7 on the road this season.
 
 
At Duke (5-24, 2-16 ACC): Friday, Nov. 28 – 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET (Durham, N.C.)
Live Stream: ACCNX
Live Stats: StatBroadcast
Last Meeting: Nov. 7, 2025 (at Cal – Cal won 3-0)
Last Road Meeting: Nov. 24, 2024 (Cal won 3-1)
First Meeting: Oct. 13, 1985 (at Cal – Cal originally won 3-1 but later forfeited for using an ineligible player)
Bears vs. Blue Devils All-Time Record: 3-1
Current Series Streak: Cal won last three
 
The Blue Devils are ranked last in the ACC standings and are the No. 18 team in the conference in opponent hitting percentage (.241) and blocks per set (1.80); however, they are among the ACC's best teams in digs per set with an average of 14.48.  The latter stat is mainly due to the efforts of standout sophomore libero Mailinh Godschall, who is third in the ACC with an average of 4.02 digs per set. Duke fields a pair of 300-kill outside hitters in freshman Ashby Zubchevich (3.20 kills per set) and sophomore Taylor Williams (2.98 kills per set), who also both lead their team with 0.29 service aces per set.
 
In the last matchup between Duke and Cal, the Bears held the Blue Devils' offense to just .027 – their worst hitting performance of the season at the time – and kept them under 20 points in two out of three sets. Williams led her squad with 11 digs, seven kills and four blocks, while Godschall also reached double digits with 10 digs.
 
The Blue Devils are on a 12-match losing streak dating back to Oct. 17. Their last win came against Clemson on Oct. 12, sweeping the Tigers for Duke's lone road victory this season.
 
 
THANK YOU, SENIORS
Cal volleyball honored its five graduating seniors this past after the match against No. 5 Stanford. Mikayla Hayden has consistently been one of the Bears' top blockers in all four years and has kicked things into another gear this season, recording a pair of kills-blocks double-doubles and posting the highest hitting percentage in a single match by any Bear this season (.889 with eight kills against No. 10 SMU). Peyton DeJardin has been one of the top scorers on the team in each of the past two seasons, surpassing 300 kills as a junior and posting her best kills-per-set average as a senior. Natalie Lau started her career as a serving specialist and was called into action as a junior to become Cal's starting setter for nearly the entire 2024 season, finishing the year as the ACC's No. 4 player in assists per set (9.61, also the most by any Bear since 2016). Sophie Scott was one of the Pac-12's top blockers as an underclassman and, despite missing over a year and a half due to injury, is currently second on the team in career blocks while also acting as Cal's most efficient attacker in ACC play. Cherlin Antonio transferred to Cal in 2023 and was a key player in several matches for the Bears this year, including a 10-kill outing in the team's ACC Opener at Virginia Tech.
 
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 yearandahalf, 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 two months of her college sophomore year and her entire junior season, but she 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 nine matches for Cal this year, including the Bears' last seven.
 
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 ranks eighth all-time in career blocks at Cal with 380 and needs 12 more to crack the Bears' top-10 single-season list with 117 on the year.
 
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 – second most by any ACC player in a four-set match this season and third 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. 24, 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 21 of Cal's matches this season.
 
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