Golden Nuggets: Graduation, Porwigle Content, and a Mess of Medals

Congrats Graduates!

Hello and welcome to Golden Nuggets! In this weekly write up, we try our best to cover all things Cal, Berkeley, Bearkeley UC Berkeley, University of Cal Berkeley, University of Berkeley at Cal, BerkeleyInspire, and California Berkeley University that happened more or less in the last week! Let’s dig in!

Congratulations Graduates!

This past week, UC Berkeley held their Spring 2025 Commencement and celebrated as over 7,000 graduates crossed the stage, shook Rich Lyons hand, and received a donation solicitation from Cal Alumni Association. Congrats all! Department Graduations are littered across this week which I always felt was a little more meaningful. I’d attempt to post here the myriad of graduation posts, but in doing so I know I’d forget half of them. So congratulations all new UC Berkeley graduates from all of us here at Write for California!

Senior Day for Cal Baseball

Cal Baseball celebrated Senior Day this past week. Congrats Seth Gwynn, Nico Button, Tucker Bougie, Lucas Alaniz, Jack Johnston, Joey Donnelly, Cole Tremain, Jake Guardianic, David Shaw, Logan Piper, Jeff Hoffman, and Max Handron, and Alex Birge!

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Speling Spelling Beads Bees!

With the 2025 Scripps National Spelling Bee write around the corner, UC Berkley profiled comparative literature Ph.D. student Frank Cahill who helped develop the full speling word list this year, potentially including the word he missed as a competitor in 8th grade, porwigle (to save you some googling, a porwigle is a tadpole.) Reed more about how the list is developed hear!

Hot Links

• Congrats to Mike Montgomery, Alex Morgan, and Dr. Harry Edwards for being inducted into the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame!

• Read up on a new Master of Fine Arts exhibition at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive that echoes UC Berkeley’s long history of free speech and disability activism!

• BAMPFA will also be hosting an exhibit featuring 20th Century African American Quilts

• The race is on to create the perfect quantum computer that will allow me to poorly photoshop Oski in various places even faster! Read about UC Berkeley’s role here.

• Today I Learned about how medieval readers used to make out with books.

• NPR caught up with Cal Super Fan Adam Duritz of Counting Crows to talk about his new album.

• CRISPR is back in the news following its use to treat a rare genetic disease in a newborn

Golden Bear Honors

• Acacia Anders and Lagi Quiroga were named to the NFCA All-Regional Second Team while Tianna Bell and Elon Butler were named to the Third Team marking the fourth straight season that Cal Softball has had 4 All-Region Selections

• Jared Freeman (Hammer) won the Bronze in the ACC Outdoor Championships

• Giavonna Meeks (Hammer) took Gold in the ACC Outdoor Championship (Two and half months after winning the same in Indoor).

• Valentina Savva (Hammer) took Silver in the ACC Outdoor Championship

• Nick Godbhere (Shot Put) took Bronze in the ACC Outdoor Championship

• Trevor Rogers (Long Jump) took Silver in the ACC Outdoor Championship

• Tyler Burns (Pole Vault) took Silver in the ACC Outdoor Championship

• Lucija Leko (Shot Put) took Silver in the ACC Outdoor Championship

• Caisa-Marie Lindfors took Silver in Discus and Bronze in Shot Put took Bronze in the ACC Outdoor Chammpionships

• Mykolas Alekna set a meet and facility record along the way to picking up Gold in Discus at the ACC Outdoor Championships

• Garrett Macquiddy took Silver in the 1500m at the ACC Outdoor Championships

• Johnny Goode took Bronze in the 400m at the ACC Outdoor Championships

• Caisa-Marie Lindfors, Johnny Goode, Garrett Macquiddy, Tyler Burns, Trevor Rogers, Nick Godbehere, Mykolas Alekna, Giavonna Meeks, Valentina Savva, Lucija Leko, Jared Freeman, Asjah Atkinson, Donovan Bradley, Loreal Wilson, Riley Knott, Charlie Dang, Adrianna Coleman, and Audrey Jacobs were all named to the All-ACC Track and Field First and Second Teams

• Elena Flynn of Women’s Water Polo was profiled for AAPI Heritage Month

• Minou Bouman (Women’s Rowing) was named ACC All-Conference First Team

• Julia Hunt-Davis (Women’s Rowing) was named ACC All-Conference Second Team

• Theodor Roald Gadderud was selected to represent Norway at the European Gymnastics Championships next week!

• Jarren Advincula (Baseball) was named All-ACC Second Team

• Jacob French (Baseball) was named All-ACC Third Team

• Cal Rugby had 11 Players selected to the 2025 D1A All-Americans

Cal Athletics Round Up

• Men’s Golf advanced out of the NCAA Reno Regional and head to the NCAA Championship Friday

• Track and Field competed in the ACC Championship and put on a show (Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3) with the Men’s Team taking 3rd overall and the Women’s Team 6th

• Baseball went 2-1 against Boston College (8-6, 9-10, 4-3) and beat Miami 12-1 to advance in the ACC Tournament

• Women’s Rowing competed in the ACC Championships (Day 1, Day 2) ultimately coming in 4th

• Softball beat Omaha, but lost to Oklahoma before beating Omaha again and losing to Oklahoma again, capping off a great season

• Men’s Rowing competed in the MPSF Championships (Day 1, Day 2) and claimed the conference championship!

Cal Pro Round Up

• PGA

  • Colin Morikawa tied for 50th, Michael Kim tied for 55th, Max Homa tied for 60th, and Ben An placed 74th at the PGA Championship this past weekend at Quail Hollow

  • Max Homa is settling back in despite the finish and finding his groove.

• WNBA

  • Charmin Smith and the Cal Women’s Team were on hand for the Valkyrie’s Home Opener last week

• NBA

  • Jaylen Brown revealed that he had been playing through injury following the Celtics loss last week

Next Week in Bear Territory

• Baseball plays Wake Forest (5/21) where the winner advances to play Georgia Tech (5/22) and the winner of that game advances to the ACC Baseball Championship Quarterfinals (5/23) followed by the Semi-Finals (5/24) and Finals (5/25)

• Men’s Golf competes in the NCAA Championship in Carlsbad (5/23-5/28)

• Track and Field competes in the NCAA West Regionals (5/28-5/31)

That raps it up for this weak of Golden Nuggets! Once again, thanks for reeding, As always, if I forgot something, please feel free to drop it in the comments! Now back to practicing for the speling bee.