A quick glance at the ranked Cal Olympic Sports
No.2 Cal Women's Gymnastics will take on No.1 Oklahoma and host Arizona State in a Friday night meet (6 PM, Free stream on Pac-12 Insider)
As the calendar turns to the month of February, let us take a look at all of the active ranked Cal programs.
No.2 Cal Women’s Gymnastics (7-1, 2-0 in Pac-12)
After four weeks of action, Cal retains the second-best team average score in the country at 197.638. Golden Bears achieved their best team score of 197.950 in their latest meet, the home opener victory over No.16 Oregon State.
https://twitter.com/CalWGym/status/1753200197939982424
Ahead of Cal in the rankings is two-time defending champion Oklahoma, who is averaging 197.963 on the year. Today marks the first of two head-to-head regular season matchups between Cal and Oklahoma as both programs will compete at the tri-meet hosted by Arizona State. Cal will travel to the Metroplex Challenge in Fort Worth, Texas (but not at the same venue as the NCAA Championships also hosted by Fort Worth) on February 17th for a quad-meet against Oklahoma, Washington, and Arkansas.
Individually, Cal junior Mya Lauzon is second only to LSU’s Haleigh Bryant in the all-around. The average score for Lauzon at 39.706 is just a touch behind that of Bryant at 39.708. Lauzon has deservedly earned the last two Pac-12 Gymnast of the Week honors after teammate eMjae Frazier (11th nationally in the all-around with an average score of 39.550) won the honor three weeks ago.
No.2 Cal vs. No.1 Oklahoma vs. No.23 Arizona State
Where: Tempe, Arizona
When: Friday, February 2nd at 6 PM PT
Stream: Pac-12 Insider (Free)
No.2 Cal Women’s Water Polo (4-0)
Stars are aligned for Cal Women’s Water Polo to win the program’s first NCAA championship. While Stanford, UCLA, and USC have been the only three programs to win the NCAA title in history, one only needs to look at the USA Women’s Senior Team roster to notice the four Stanford (Jenna Flynn, Ryann Neushul, Jewel Roemer, Ella Woodhead), one UCLA (Emma Lineback), and one USC (Emily Ausmus) that are all taking a redshirt year to help Team USA in this Olympic year.
Cal is not only not as impacted by the Olympics, though there will be several recent alumni representing a couple of different countries, but will have the edge in the goalkeeper position with fifth-year senior Isabel Williams there. Helping out with the scoring is the arrival of UC Irvine transfer redshirt junior Elena Flynn, who has scored 50+ goals in each of the last two seasons. Golden Bears also added an impact freshman in Julia Bonaguidi, who may just be a little bit too young to factor into the USA National team roster this cycle. Another future Cal Olympian in the making may be Dutch freshman Feline Voordouw at center. Flynn (7 goals), Voordouw (6 goals), and Bonaguidi (5 goals) are already atop the Cal scoring leaderboard along with the more familiar names like Maryn Dempsey (6 goals) and Reagan Whitney (6 goals).
Last but not least, Cal will host the NCAA Championship this year on May 10-12 at Spieker Aquatics Complex. The home crowd on that weekend may just be the difference in pushing the program to its first NCAA championship.
https://twitter.com/CalWWPolo/status/1753206031529005415
Cal will face Stanford officially for the first time this weekend at the Stanford Invitational. They will likely face two of the Pac-12 California rivals at the prestigious Barbara Kalbus Invitational hosted by UC Irvine later this month (February 23-25).
No.2 Cal Men’s Swimming and Diving
The drastic difference in scoring between swimming dual meets and the NCAA’s makes this ranking rather pointless. The two-time NCAA defending champions Cal will face a great challenge from Arizona State, currently ranked No.1 in the dual meet rankings, at the NCAA. We will surely break down the battle between the two programs next month, ahead of the Pac-12 and NCAA Championships.
Two weeks ago, Cal and ASU put on what has been called the best collegiate dual meet in history - one where every event mattered with the two programs finishing in a tie.
It was not a given that this was going to be a great meet. Perhaps it’s due to this being the senior day, Cal opted to race ASU on even ground with the Golden Bears opting to wear the tech suits. Last year, the suited ASU dominated the suit-less Cal in the dual meet that was far less exciting.
Bears made an early statement with the 200 Medley Relay win.
In a steady rain, ASU edged Cal in the final 200 Free Relay to earn the draw.
Cal benefited from the diving points to get the draw. One would say that ASU has the current edge over Cal, but one cannot count the Golden Bears out.
It is not super clear, with some of the Olympic hopefuls in Doha for the Aquatics World Championships and a split team racing in the long courses in San Diego, if Cal will have a very competitive squad at USC for the meet today.
No.5 Cal Women’s Swimming and Diving
Cal is probably slightly over-ranked compared to where they will finish as a team at the NCAA Championships this year. Nonetheless, the program has recovered in a way after the whole Teri McKeever fiasco. Cal will be a championship contender again soon when the arguably best class in program history arrives in the fall of 2025.
https://twitter.com/CalWSwim/status/1750676924459077815
In the meantime, Cal has two USA Olympic hopefuls in Isabelle Stadden and Rachel Klinker. It was interesting that Stadden went and trained with the Cal men at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado during winter break instead of the rest of the Cal women’s team in Hawaii. Klinker is a late addition to the Team USA roster that is racing in Doha, Qatar this weekend.
No.10 Cal Men’s Gymnastics
Cal has an average team score of 392.250, good for 10th in the country. Bears can realistically move up to No.8 or so, but Stanford (average 414.525) and Oklahoma (average 413.500) will be nearly impossible to catch.
https://twitter.com/CalMGym/status/1751481281689559236
No.15 Cal Women’s Tennis (2-0)
Golden Bears defeated Illinois 4-0 and then the host Oklahoma 4-3 in their draw of the ITA Kickoff Weekend to open the 2024 dual meet season. Cal will advance as one of the 16 teams to the ITA Indoor Championship in Seattle, Washington.
https://twitter.com/CalWomensTennis/status/1752761845088452904
A transfer from Cornell, junior Lan Mi won the deciding match in court 6 against Oklahoma. Golden Bears have an experienced squad led by seniors Valentina Ivanov and Hannah Viller Moeller and juniors Jessica Alsola and Katja Wiersholm. They should stay ranked in the top-25 even though the Pac-12 will be a tough gauntlet to run through in its final year with Stanford (2nd), UCLA (13th), USC (16th), Washington (21st), and Arizona State (24th).
https://twitter.com/CalWomensTennis/status/1751746601155277246
No.18 Cal Men’s Golf
Cal opened their 2024 with a 9th place finish at the Southwestern Invitational earlier this week. Ethan Fang was the top Bear with a T9 finish.
Combining experience (seniors Sampson Zheng and Aaron Du won U.S. Amateur Four-Ball last year) and the No.1 ranked freshman class (Eric Lee, Ethan Fang, Sihao Cong), Cal has a deep roster and many different roster combinations (not to mention guys not being available to pursue other opportunities).
https://twitter.com/CalMensGolf/status/1724886299273056314
Could this be the year when head coach Walter Chun puts the right roster together to put Cal into a championship run? The individual pieces appear to be there.
Cal Bears won two tournaments this past fall in Alister MacKenzie Invitational and Cal Poly Invitational.
No.18 Cal Women’s Golf
Cal women’s golf will begin their 2024 play today from Guadalajara, Mexico.
Coming off a strong fall where they won two tournaments in Molly Collegiate Invitational and Ron Moore Intercollegiate, the Golden Bears will look to continue their strong season.
Freshman Constance Fouillet from France is already leaving her marks on the Cal record book.
FYI, I left Cal Rugby out because I could not find a reliable ranking. I will also have a dedicated post on Rugby coming up next week after seeing them play in person tomorrow at UCLA.
Correction: apparently the swimming portion of the Aquatic Championships in Doha, Qatar is not until next weekend. Klinker will race with Cal women this weekend. Cal Men's Swedish duo of Seeliger and Hanson will probably also race with Cal this weekend as well.