Cal Men's Water Polo (9-0) and Volleyball (11-0) having perfect starts

Field Hockey, Women's Soccer, Men's Soccer have already earned some top-10 win and draws, respectively

While there are plenty of uncertainties in the future of Cal Athletics from the pending move to the ACC and new campus administrators (a new Chancellor after Carol Christ’ss retirement at the end of this school year and Athletic Director Jim Knowlton being unlikely to stay until the end of his contract through 2029), we know that Cal will have the full 30 sports in this 2023-24 school year and plenty of “Calympians” at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games next summer.

If you have not paid any attention to Cal Olympic sports, the main story is the three-peat bids for Cal Men’s Water Polo this fall, Cal Men’s Swimming and Diving next winter, and Cal Men’s Rowing next spring. All of them are probably considered the favorites to extend their championship-winning streaks with the bulk of the roster back to defend, although Olympic duties may impact Cal Rowing’s roster.

So far this fall, there have already been a few great performances by the California Golden Bears across all sports. Let's take a look at those moments.

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The Undefeated Duo

No.1 Cal Men's Water Polo (9-0)

2022 Results: 23-2, NCAA Champions

Led by a two-time reigning Cutino Award winner in senior center Nikolaos Papanikolaou, No.1 Cal has dominated the pool in 2023 as expected. Golden Bears returned nearly the entire team, including all nine redshirt seniors, many are back for one last dance from the bench because there is not enough play time to go around. Pivotal to the team's success in the past few years is fellow senior goalkeeper Adrian Weinberg, who has also ascended to be the starting goalkeeper for Team USA this past summer and likely next summer.

With Papanikolaou drawing double and triple teams from the center position constantly, Cal has gotten great outside scoring from the Spanish trio of Roberto Valera, Max Casabella, and Albert Ponferrada. Weinberg also gets a lot of good defense to help him with numerous Bears capable of making the steals and field blocks (when a shot goes out of bound from a field block, the defending team gets the ball; when the goalie knocks the ball out of bound, the offensive team gets another possession).

The clear highlight of the season thus far has got to be the early rematch of the last two NCAA Championship finals on September 9th from USC. No.1 Cal completely dominated then-No.2 USC in a 12-5 victory that was the largest winning margin under head coach Kirk Everist (since 2002). That winning margin should have been even larger had the referees called everything that the Trojans were doing to Papanikolaou.

With 2023 looking like a rebuilding year for powerhouse programs like USC and Stanford, No.1 Cal may only face a real challenge from UCLA. An unprecedented perfect season is also looking rather plausible.

Playing without Papanikolaous this past weekend, Cal still defeated UC Davis 11-9 and No.7 Pacific 17-8. The latter was a rematch of last year's NCAA semifinals.

Of course, even with Cal being the favorite and having home pool advantage at the NCAA Championship final last December, it took a Herculean effort by Papanikolaou to will the Bears to a monumental come-from-behind win. The 2023 schedule change meant home-and-home against UCLA, USC, and Stanford on top of just one regular-season tournament against them (coming up this weekend from Los Angeles) rather than just one regular-season match and more tournaments where the four schools may play each other in semifinals and finals/3rd place matches. Last year, Cal only played USC and Stanford three times and UCLA twice. This year, they may meet as many as five times including the season-ending MPSF and NCAA tournaments.

Until they possibly drop a match, I do believe that the Cal roster depth and experience give them a realistic run at a perfect season.

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Cal Volleyball (11-0)

2022 Result: 7-23, 0-20 in Pac-12

Mere weeks before the season was about to start, Sam Crosson suddenly resigned as the Cal Volleyball head coach. This may or may not be planned by Crosson to give his very young coaching staff a chance to lead the program for one year. Nonetheless, Cal Volleyball is rolling in 2023 with interim head coach Crissy Jones Schoonderwoerd and assistant coach Savannah Rennie, who both just joined the coaching staff earlier this year. Coaching experience is apparently not that important with the Golden Bears bouncing back in a big way with an 11-0 start in non-conference play.

On the court, Cal lost their best player in Lydia Grote as the opposite has taken her talent to a top-10 ranked Minnesota squad. Cal didn't really gain much from the transfer portal with Paige Morningstar being the backup setter, but struck gold with the addition of freshman Maggie Li. Li got international experience with the Chinese U-20 national team but was never announced as a big-time recruit (it is a bit unclear when she committed to Cal). Instead, Li just gained the attention of the Pac-12 by winning three straight Pac-12 Freshman of the Week honors in replacing the production of Grote and more.

https://twitter.com/pac12/status/1702759187363799102

Equally as important to Cal's success was the blossoming of senior Sam Taumoepeau who had never been featured as much as this year in the Cal lineup. Taumoepeau missed the second half of the season last year due to injury but took a tremendous jump to be the other main outside hitter. Also making a major impact is redshirt sophomore Ava Mehrten, who earned the tournament MVP honor this past weekend at the Wolf Pack Invitational.

With more weapons and likely also stepping up her game in her junior year, Annalea Maeder has also put up great numbers so far as the Cal floor general. The Swiss setter has improved her assists per set from 7 to 10 this season.

As a team, Cal's hitting has improved from the anemic 0.180 in the last two years to a robust 0.263 so far. In a few matches that I got to watch, it was also clear that this team has regained some mental toughness in bouncing back after dropping a tough set here and there. Last year's squad really should have had a few more wins, but Cal just could not win any 5-setters.

Before we get too excited about this brilliant start, I should point out the obvious that Cal has not played the most competitive non-conference schedule. Golden Bears have beaten several good but not great teams. Nonetheless, for a program that had a 200+ RPI last year, Cal Volleyball is clearly at least a top-80 team in 2023. Whether Cal Volleyball is really back depends on how they fare in the gauntlet that is Pac-12 volleyball. Golden Bears will host No.4 Stanford tonight at 7 PM PT from Haas in the home leg of the Big Spike.

Cal will need a few upset wins over ranked teams, particularly at home, and beat up on the lesser teams, snapping the current ridiculous 55-match losing streak in Pac-12 play, to possibly earn a return trip to the NCAA tournament. Before the season, I would think that is a pipe dream. After the brilliant start to the season, this Cal Volleyball squad just might have what it takes.

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Other Cal Fall Olympic Sports

Cal Field Hockey (3-3)

2022 Results: 4-11

Head coach Shellie Onstead has remade her squad via the transfer portal. With 6 graduate transfers in the starting lineup now, Cal Field Hockey is basically a brand new team. All of the offensive leaders: Daniella Rhodes (6 goals), Kitty Baccanello (5 goals), and Bente Baekers (3 goals, 3 assists) came from Liberty, Exeter, and Northwestern respectively. The defense backline is also anchored by transfers Maria Cambra Soler (Kent State), Cato Geusgens (Virginia). The last transfer is Merel Hanssen from Michigan who joins homegrown seniors Kiki de Bruijne and Claire Hind and junior Sydney Decher in the Cal lineup. Sophomore Tina Jolly has taken over the goalkeeper spot full-time after appearing in two games last year. 

Without a doubt, the signature win for this team was the 3-2 OT victory over then No.5 Penn State.

Check out the game-winning goal:

https://twitter.com/CalFieldHockey/status/1698025615268757620

It was Cal's first win over a top-5 opponent since 2007.

Both Tina Jolly and Daniella Rhodes have won America East weekly honors so far.

While one can question whether this heavy reliance on graduate transfers is a sustainable way to regain relative success (Cal used to be the lone top-25 ranked team in the West before that became Stanford) for the program, there is no doubt that Cal Field Hockey can use a big season NOW to galvanize its fanbase.

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Cal Women's Soccer (3-3-2)

2022 Results: 10-5-6, 5-3-3 in Pac-12, NCAA Tournament 1st Round

Also rolling out with a quite different lineup in 2023 is Cal Women's Soccer which graduated a lot of players as the only other Cal program to make the postseason last fall. Cal did lose freshman defender Ayo Oke via the portal to current No.5 UCLA, but most of the starting lineup this year were backups last year.

Cal graduated goal leader Keely Roy (11 G, 2 A) and lost Oke (team-high 9 assists), but does return Karlie Lema (5 G, 2 A) and Ari Manrique (2 G, 2 A). Lema has already tallied 3 Goals and 2 Assists to lead the team in 2023. Fellow junior (part of that No.1 ranked class in the country) Velize King has 2 goals already.

In front of the net, sophomore Teagan Wy has replaced Angelina Anderson. Wy has all the pedigree, she was on the USWNT U-20 team, to extend Cal's reputation as a goalkeeper developing school.

The best result so far is a 0-0 draw against then-No.8 Santa Clara on September 7th. Santa Clara knocked Cal out of the NCAA tournament last year in the dying minute of overtime. Cal held the Broncos to just two shots on goal.

Pac-12 play starts this weekend. Bears will have ample opportunity to improve their current RPI of 111th.

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Cal Men's Soccer (3-2-3, 0-1-1 in Pac-12)

2022 Results: 3-8-6

In year two under head coach Leonard Griffin, Cal Men's Soccer started the year with two big road draws from North Carolina. In trips that they will be familiar with when Cal joins the ACC, the Golden Bears earned a 1-1 draw against No.10 UNCG (North Carolina, Greensboro) and another 1-1 draw against No.18 Wake Forest.

Against UNCG, Cal conceded an early goal in the 4th minute but found an equalizer in the 22nd minute from Nonso Adimabua. In real-time, there was an additional 30+ minute weather delay.

Cal graduated their top scorer Fahmi Ibrahim (7 G) and top goalkeeper Collin Travasos (who graduate-transferred to North Carolina). Nonetheless, there are still enough upperclassmen to lead the team this season with Evan Davila (3 G, 1 A), Juan Martinez (2 G, 2 A), and Nonso Adimabua (1 G, 2 A) leading the offense. Redshirt sophomore Connor Lambe is the new goalkeeper.

Bears missed on the chance to take down Oregon State in their Pac-12 opener as they drew 2-2 despite having a man advantage for the majority of the match after an early red card to the Beavers. Cal then fell to the Huskies by a 1-0 result. No.1 Stanford and No.18 San Diego State are on the schedule for Cal's Pac-12 lineup (San Diego State is in the Pac-12 for Men's Soccer) where they play a home-and-home against all of the other sides.

Golden Bears are good enough to earn some possible draws or upset wins against the "better on paper" teams, but they will need a few of those to return to the NCAA postseason.

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Cal Cross Country

2022 Results: No representative at the NCAA Championships

One meet is in the book for the Golden Bears and the early result was promising. Cal men took 2nd while the Cal women took 3rd at the USF Invitational. For the men, sophomore Caden Carney and senior Garrett MacQuiddy placed 7th and 8th, respectively. For the women, freshman Amelia Wardle-Stacey placed 11th overall as the top Bear.

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A special shoutout to Cal Men's Golf who has started their season very strong with the addition of the top-ranked class in the country.

Head coach Walter Chun may rue not putting freshman Eric Lee in the Cal lineup at the Marquette Intercollegiate. Lee ended up as the co-medalist in his collegiate debut. Cal placed 2nd as a team while not being able to count Lee's results. Lee won the Co-Pac-12 Men's Golfer of the Week honor.

With the final round happening right now, Cal is again in contention at the Husky Invitational this week. Eric Lee is again in contention for the individual title. Fellow freshman Ethan Fang and upperclassmen Sampson Zheng and Aaron Du lead a sleuth of Cal Bears on the leaderboard.

GO BEARS!