Cal Olympic Sports: Women's Soccer and Field Hockey Earn National Rankings
Both teams are hosting the highly-ranked North Carolina and Duke this week!
Without a doubt, the biggest news for Cal Olympics Sports this fall is the rise in national relevance of Cal Football. With ESPN’s College Game Day coming to Berkeley this weekend, the long-term health of Cal Athletics looks so much more promising than a year ago. Ultimately, Cal Athletics’ chance of maintaining anything close to the current status quo, the 30 sports with plenty of non-revenue sports successes, is tied to that of the money-making football program.
Of course, there have also been plenty of notable developments by the Cal Olympic Sports in this 2024-25 school year. Today, we will highlight the women’s teams.
No.18 Cal Women’s Soccer (10-1-2, 3-0-1 in ACC): Karlie Lema ties for the national lead in goals with 13
Senior Karlie Lema has been a prolific scorer since arriving on campus but she has found another level in 2024. Halfway through the season, Karlie Lema is tied atop the national leaderboard for total goals with 13!
Lema has already way exceeded her previous season totals of the past few years: 6 - team leading in 2021 to earn a spot on Pac-12 All-Freshman Team, 5 in 2022 to be 2nd on the team, 4 in 2023 to be 2nd on the team. Lema earned her first career hat trick against Nevada.
Lema also scored a brace and assisted on the other goal in Cal’s 3-1 win at NC State. That victory earned the distinction of being Cal Athletics’ 1st ACC victory across all sports!
Part of Lema’s increased scoring output may have to do with how fellow senior Ari Manrique (team-high 5 goals in 2023) had only played 3 matches thus far.
It is not just Lema, of course. The entire squad has already scored 33 goals in just 13 matches in 2024. Cal only recorded 29 goals in the 19 total matches of the 2023 season.
Cal Women’s Soccer at U-20 Women’s World Cup
Additionally, Cal’s defense was a bit weaker in this first month of the season due to two key players being away for the U-20 Women’s World Cup in Colombia. Two starters: junior goalkeeper Teagan Wy (USA) and sophomore defender Miriam Hils (Germany) were away for about a month after the first two matches of the season.
Both Team USA and Team Germany made it out of the group play stage to the knockout stage. Wy and the U-20 United States Women’s Youth National Team needed a furious comeback in the quarterfinal to beat Hils’ Team Germany via penalty shootout. Wy shone in the PK shootout to send the Americans to the semifinal. Unfortunately, U-20 USWYNT’s bid for Gold ended with a 1-0 loss to North Korea. Wy and the Americans bounced back by winning the Bronze over the Netherlands.
Cal anticipated Wy’s missing time for international duty by getting a quality backup in UCLA transfer Kelly McManus. McManus had been solid with a 1.02 GAA. Nonetheless, Cal got a boost from the return of Hils and Wy this past weekend.
Teagan Wy is well-positioned to be the next Cal Bear on the USWNT team.
Cal legend Alex Morgan retiring from professional soccer; Current Cal Alex’s continuing her legacy
Tied for 2nd on the team with 3 goals apiece are Alex Klos (junior transfer from Santa Clara) and Alexis Wright (senior striker who got an increased role this season - 659 minutes so far already blew past her previous career-high of 370 minutes last year).
A few weeks ago, Cal women’s soccer alum and global soccer superstar Alex Morgan announced her retirement from professional soccer. Morgan also mentioned that she is pregnant with her second child. Congratulations to Alex Morgan on her brilliant career. She has used her fame and influence to advance women’s sports and no doubt those work will continue.
Cal earned their most impressive result by earning a 1-1 draw at No.13 Wake Forest. The Deamon Deacons had just upset then-No.1 Stanford a few days earlier.
Coming back for their first ACC homestand, Cal prevailed with a 1-0 win over Pitt.
Then a thrilling 3-2 win over Miami on Sunday to kick off the week that will end with Cal vs. Miami on the grid iron.
It is a good sign for the Cal offense that the game-winners for these last two games were the first goals of the season from Soleil Dimry and Malia McMahon; the number of Golden Bears to have tallied a goal in 2024 is now up to 12.
Cal Women’s Soccer entered the United Soccer Coaches Poll for the first time this week by checking in at No.18. Cal is now one of 8 ACC teams to be ranked in the top 25.
The ACC homestand continues with No.3 North Carolina on Thursday and No.2 Duke on Sunday. These are golden opportunities for Cal Bears to make a big statement on the national stage. I would not be shocked if the Cal Bears are still undefeated in ACC play by the end of the weekend.
No.20 Cal Field Hockey (6-1, 0-1 in ACC): Dutch newcomers duo Liz Klompmaker and Canisha van Duyn leading Cal offense in jump to ACC
After Cal won the America East conference for the first and final time in 2023 behind a bevy of graduate transfers, the Golden Bears have moved into the premier college field hockey conference: the ACC.
Leading the Cal Bears early in 2024 are the Dutch duo of freshman Liz Klompmaker and graduate student Canisha van Duyn. Klompmaker has a team-high 11 goals to go with 1 assist. Canisha van Duyn has a team-high 9 assists to go with 1 goal. Before Cal, the two players have been teammates on the same Dutch club team, Groningen.
Another freshman, Maya Hoepfner from Germany, has contributed 3 goals and 1 assist. Sophomore Holly Pears, who stood out last year amongst all the graduate transfers, has also tallied 3 goals.
Argentinian junior Tina Jolly is back in front of the pipes for the Bears to lead the Cal defense.
For the first time since 2018, Cal Field Hockey has returned to the NFHCA D1 Coaches’ Poll at No.20! By RPI, Cal is even higher ranked at No.12.
The lone blemish on the year is a close 3-4 loss at Virginia. Golden Bears will welcome No.12 Duke and No.1 North Carolina on Friday and Sunday this weekend. We will know just how good this Cal squad is by next week.
Cal Volleyball (8-6, 0-2 in ACC): New Head Coach Jen Malcom has Cal looking like a bubble tournament team
A new era for Cal Volleyball started this season. After enduring the 2023 season with an interim head coach, Cal gave the reign to the once proud program to Jen Malcom, who had been an assistant coach at UCLA.
Golden Bears showed some promise in 2023 by finding a new star in Maggie (Xuemeng) Li from China.
So far in 2024, Cal Volleyball has shown further improvement by giving Maggie Li some help. While they may not quite make it back to the NCAA tournament this year, the program is heading in that direction.
Maggie Li is continuing her fine collegiate career by leading the team with 203 kills (3.98 kills/set) hitting a solid 0.202 (for someone who the opponent knows is the No.1 option).
Junior Natalie Lau has taken over as the setter from senior Annalea Maeder. Graduate transfer (from Denver) Gianna Bartalo is the reliable new libero for the season. But it is the emergence of Peyton DeJardin (2.84 K/S at 0.207) and freshman Kate Mansfield (2.14 K/S at 0.293) to go with middle blocker Mikayla Hayden (2.04 K/S at 0.329) that have the Bears in some competitive sets (obviously, I would prefer to say wins here) against high-quality opponents.
Cal’s most recent and impressive win was a 3-2 victory at Saint Mary’s.
Since then, the Bears have dropped contests against UCLA, then at No.5 Louisville, and Notre Dame.
Cal will host Wake Forest (9-4, 1-1 in ACC) on Friday night and NC State (7-3, 2-0 in ACC) on Sunday. These are the mid-level ACC foes that Cal will need to be able to beat at home, if they want to have a shot to make the NCAA tournament in 2024.
GO BEARS!
Oops, I completely misread the calendar and Cal Women's Soccer actually got a full weekend off to prepare for the gauntlet that is two top-3 teams in UNC and Duke. That's a perfect time for a bye.
Can we all take a moment to appreciate that Coach Shellie Onstead rebuilt her team from a 4-11 season in 2022, losing to pretty much any team from a place where the leaves turned colors to winning most of them. Granted, ACC play is now here and it is very difficult - but I don't think this is a team that will get crushed 7-0.