After finishing 3-7 with five-straight losses to bring a close to nonconference play, the California volleyball team is looking for a reset and a strong start to the ACC season with a road trip to Virginia Tech and Virginia this weekend. The Golden Bears will rely on a strong passing game that ranks fourth in the ACC against the Hokies (8-3) and the Cavaliers (7-3), neither of whom hosted Cal last year as new conference-mates.
 
Saturday's match against Virginia Tech will be streamed on ACCNX, while Sunday's contest against Virginia will be aired on ACC Network.
 
Last week, Cal suffered a reverse sweep at the hands of UC Davis despite 19 kills from freshman Arissa Carbonara and a double-double from setter Natalie Lau, followed by another five-set loss against a strong LSU team just three days later and a defeat in four to No. 19 USC. Peyton DeJardin posted a career-high 21 kills as well as 10 digs against the Tigers, while freshman Maria ?tirbu had 48 assists and 15 digs for her first collegiate double-double and fellow freshman Francesca Popescu collected five service aces as the defense held LSU to just .185 hitting. That defensive pattern continued into the match against the Trojans, who posted their worst hitting percentage of the year (.197). Cal libero Sophia Johnson excelled during the week with 17, 20 and 15 digs, respectively, leading the court in all three matches for a total of 52 digs (3.71 per set).
 
Vs. Virginia Tech (8-3): Saturday, Sept. 27 – 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET (Blacksburg, Virginia)
Live Stream: ACCNX
Live Stats: StatBroadcast
Last Meeting: Nov. 14, 2024 (at Cal – Cal won 3-0)
Last Road Meeting: N/A
Bears vs. Hokies All-Time Record: 1-0
Current Streak: Cal won last one
 
Virginia Tech is off to a hot start with eight wins on the season (including six sweeps) but have yet to play a Power 4 opponent this year. The Hokies are holding opponents to .154, tied for third-best in the ACC, and rank among the conference's top-three teams in service aces per set (2.29, second) and blocks per set (2.74, third). A pair of young middle blockers (Brianna Holladay and Isabella Mishler) have been among the team's standouts: Holladay is one of the ACC's top-five nonconference players with a .410 hitting percentage and a 1.46 blocks-per-set average, both of which rank top-50 in Division 1, while Mishler ranks among the conference's top 10 (and national top 100) in both categories with a .393 hitting percentage and a 1.27 blocks-per-set pace.
 
Vs. Virginia (7-3): Sunday, Sept. 29 – 10:30 a.m. PT/1:30 p.m. ET (Charlottesville, Virginia)
Live TV: ACC Network
Live Stats: StatBroadcast
Last Meeting: Nov. 15, 2024 (at Cal – Virginia won 3-1)
Last Road Meeting: Sept. 2, 2011 (Cal won 3-0)
Current Streak: Virginia won last one
 
The Hokies have played four Power 4 teams in their last five games, picking up five-set wins over Michigan and Ohio State for the program's first victories against any Big Ten team in history, but are just 2-2 on the season at home. Cal will need to watch for the attacks of Lauryn Bowie, who posted 18 kills on .433 hitting in the win over the Wolverines, and Becca Wight, who is hitting .325 on the year and produced a 13-kill (.650) performance against Ohio State. Defensively, Virginia relies heavily on the efforts of Kate Dean (1.06 blocks per set), who led the Hokies on both sides of the ball in their last match with 11 blocks and nine kills to complete a sweep of Troy.
 
FOREVER NO. 1
For the first time in program history, the Bears will be retiring the jersey of one of their legends, as 2010 American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) National Player of the Year Carli Lloyd will have her No. 1 raised into the rafters before the Bears' ACC home opener against Louisville on October 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). Lloyd was also a dominant attacker with the Bears and 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 November 6, 2009. As a professional volleyball player, Lloyd won a bronze medal with Team USA at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio 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). She was inducted into the Cal Athletics Hall of Fame in 2023.
 
INTO THE HALL
On October 18, Cal Athletics will induct former Golden Bear Hana Cutura into its Hall of Fame as the eighth Cal volleyball player to receive the honor. Cutura, who played in Berkeley from 2006-09, is the only Cal player to surpass 2,000 career kills (2,004) and posted 628 kills 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). Cutura 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.
 
MIDDLES ON TOP
The Bears are fielding four formidable middle blockers in 2025. Senior Mikayla Hayden – one of Cal's top all-around players – will look to take another step forward this fall after posting the 12th-best hitting percentage in the ACC (.324) as a junior; through 10 matches, she is the Bears' leading scorer and is responsible for nearly one-fourth of Cal's total points this season. Junior Sawyer Thomsen is coming off a career year in which she started all 31 matches and had the most total blocks (111) by a Cal player since 2013, including an 11-block outing in the season finale against Notre Dame. Redshirt junior Sophie Scott lost the entire 2024 season to injury but has been impressive for the Bears when healthy, including a 100-block season in 2022 for a top-eight Pac-12 ranking. Finally, newcomer Ashleigh Woodruff (a junior transfer from Stony Brook) had a promising start to her sophomore year with the Seawolves before an injury forced her to sit out the season after just one game, in which she posted 10 kills and four blocks.
 
SISTER, SISTER
Senior setter Natalie Lau, who started the 2024 season on the bench but became Cal's starting setter 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 two 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 will be 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, Arizona) and setter Maria ?tirbu (Bucharest, Romania). Between them, they bring national team experience (?tirbu), 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), will each bring valuable experience to the young roster, bolstering positions that will have at least one player graduating at the end of this season.
 
 
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