California volleyball returns home this weekend to kick off a slate of seven straight matches in the Bay Area, welcoming Duke to Haas Pavilion on Friday night before hosting No. 15 North Carolina on Sunday afternoon. Both matches will be streamed on ACCNX.
 
Last weekend, the Golden Bears (6-16, 3-9 ACC) traveled back to the East Coast, where they suffered a sweep at the hands of Wake Forest and lost in four to NC State. Libero Sophia Johnson averaged 5.86 digs per set on the weekend with match highs of 15 against the Demon Deacons and 26 against the Wolfpack; the latter was also a career best for the junior and brought Cal's digs total to 88 for the most by any ACC team in a four-set match this season. Mikayla Hayden posted eight total blocks across both matches to move up to ninth on Cal's all-time career list (366).
 
Vs. Duke (5-18, 2-10 ACC): Friday, Nov. 7 – 7 p.m. PT (Berkeley)
Live Stream: ACCNX
Live Stats: StatBroadcast
Tickets: CalBears.com
Last Meeting: Nov. 24, 2024 (at Duke – Cal won 3-1)
Last Home Meeting: Oct. 3, 1985 (Cal originally won 3-1 but forfeited due to use of ineligible player)
Bears vs. Blue Devils All-Time Record: 2-1
Current Streak: Cal won last two
 
The Blue Devils are in 18th place in the ACC standings, as well as 18th in the conference in opponent hitting percentage (.240) and blocks per set (1.95); however, their floor defense is among the best in the conference with an average of 14.49 digs per set. Mailinh Godschall is among the ACC's most productive liberos, recording 4.26 digs per set on the year with six 20-dig performances and a fourth-best 3.92 digs per set in ACC play. Offensively, the Blue Devils are led by the duo of  Ashby Zubchevich and Taylor Williams, who respectively average 3.18 and 3.01 kills per set. Duke's only Power 4 win this year came in its conference opener, a 3-1 victory over NC State at home.
 
Vs. No. 15 North Carolina (17-4, 10-2 ACC): Sunday, Nov. 9 – 1 p.m. PT (Berkeley)
Live Stream: ACCNX
Live Stats: StatBroadcast
Tickets: CalBears.com
Last Meeting: Nov. 22, 2024 (at North Carolina – North Carolina won 3-1)
Last Home Meeting: Dec. 4, 2010 (NCAA Tournament Second Round – Cal won 3-0)
Bears vs. Tar Heels All-Time Record: 4-3
Current Streak: North Carolina won last one
 
The Tar Heels have one of the country's top defenses, holding opponents to an ACC-lowest .161 hitting percentage and posting a red-hot 2.96 blocks per set with 3.26 blocks per set in ACC play. Star middle blockers Jackie Taylor (1.46 blocks per set) and Lauren Schutter (1.45 blocks per set) are ranked among the nation's top-13 blockers and have kicked their game up a notch in conference matches, posting a respective 1.63 and 1.52 blocks per set in those contests.  Schutter is also the reigning ACC Defensive Player of the Week after posting 13 blocks against No. 4 Pitt last weekend. North Carolina's offense is led by attacker Safi Hampton (3.81 kills per set) and is hitting .258 on the year as one of six ACC teams ranked in the national top 50.
 
 
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 76th in the nation with 1.21 blocks per set and is tied for 57th in the country with 103 blocks on the year, bringing her career total to 366 for ninth-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 last week, 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.
 
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 ?tirbu (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. 3, 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 one of Cal's matches this season.
 
 
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