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Cal Sand Volleyball debuts, has 1st home meet today; Softball, Women's Water Polo, and Baseball on Pac-12 Networks this weekend

With today being the last day of basketball on the Pac-12 Networks schedule, expect more (former) Olympic sports to be featured on the Pac-12 Networks the rest of the year.

By Ruey Yen
a photo from the historic first Sand Volleyball match in Cal history
a photo from the historic first Sand Volleyball match in Cal history
Cal Sand Volleyball Twitter

Cal Sand Volleyball (0-1)

The newest (and 30th) sports of Cal Athletes finally debuted last weekend. The Bears fell to Pacific 4-1, with the lone victory coming from the No.2 pair of Lara Vukasovic and Sarah Cole.

Coach Rich Feller expect the squad to get a lot better soon.

The Bears were able to practice only two times as a full team before Sunday because the sand season overlapped with the end to the Bears' spring season. Cal will practice only in the sand from here on out.

"I think we'll get better exponentially," Cal coach Rich Feller said. "It's good for us to get this under our belt. Our expectations are not to play for a national championship this year, but to really set the stage for some really top-level sand volleyball at Cal."

Sand Volleyball makes their home debut today at 4 PM in the courts by Clark Kerr against San Jose State (0-2).

Just to give a flavor of what to expect, here are some photos from the first match last weekend.

Pacific actually had a online stream of the match last week, but we are not sure of any plan by Cal to stream their home matches this year.

The tentative lineup for today is:

Tentative Pairings
1. Adrienne Gehan (6-3, Sr., Dallas, Texas)/Joan Caloiaro (5-11, Sr., Saratoga, Calif.)
2. Sarah Cole (5-11, So., San Jose, Calif.)/Lara Vukasovic (6-5, So., Zagreb, Croatia)
3. Maddy Kerr (5-7, Fr., San Diego, Calif.)/Nikki Gombar (6-0, Fr., Rome, Italy)
4. Katarina Milosavljevic (6-1, So., Cupertino, Calif.)/Sabrina Blackwell (5-7, Fr., San Jose, Calif.)
5. Laura Leap (6-5, Fr., Thousand Oaks, Calif.)/Caroline Olson (5-9, Fr., La Quinta, Calif.)

That would a slightly different lineup with the early enrolling freshman (and member of Cal (Indoor) Volleyball) Laura Leap making her debut.

Cal Baseball (10-5, 2-2 Last Week in Cal Baseball Classic)

Pac-12 season officially kick off this weekend for the Bears when defending NCAA Champs UCLA comes to Berkeley (the earlier Cal-Furd game was considered non-conference).

Pac-12 Networks will have the Sunday game (at 2 PM).

KALX will have coverage of all three games in the series.

Fri., March 14 UCLA, Evans Diamond, Berkeley, Calif. 7 p.m.
Sat., March 15 UCLA, Evans Diamond, Berkeley, Calif. 6 p.m.
Sun., March 16 UCLA, Evans Diamond, Berkeley, Calif. 2 p.m.

With the Pac-12 play starting this weekend, let's take a quick look at how the Pac teams are doing in the poll. In the latest NCBWA poll, the ranked Pac-12 teams are Oregon State (4), Oregon (9), and UCLA (15). ASU and Cal are in the "receiving votes" category outside the top 30. Yep, 'Furd has completely fall off the poll after a slow start (their rout of the Bears was an exception).

The tentative lineup is

CAL TENTATIVE LINE-UP
No. Pos. Player 2014 Stats
27 CF Devin Pearson, So. .269, 7 RBI, 0 HR
22 LF Vince Bruno, Sr. .298, 5 RBI, 1 HR
33 DH Devon Rodriguez, Sr. .269, 10 RBI, 1 HR
2 RF Derek Campbell, Jr. .246, 8 RBI, 2 HR
19 1B Nick Halamandaris, So. .241, 6 RBI, 0 HR
6 3B Chris Paul, Jr. .250, 0 RBI, 0 HR
21 2B Brenden Farney, Jr. .370, 4 RBI, 0 HR
30 C Mitchell Kranson, So. .143, 3 RBI, 0 HR
37 SS Mike Reuvekamp, Sr. .167, 1 RBI, 0 HR
24 RHP Daulton Jefferies, Fri. (Fri.) 2-1, 3.80 ERA
16 LHP Kyle Porter, Sr. (Sat.) 2-0, 0.95 ERA
TBA (Sun.)

Last weekend, the Bears were home for the Cal Baseball Classic. On Friday, the Bears took advantage of some early Tulane miscues to go up 5-0 with freshman ace Daulton Jefferies on the mound. Jefferies faltered hard in the 5th inning, but Esquer stuck with his young righty until he gave up a go ahead homer after a 7 run Tulane outburst. Bears lost that game 10-5.

It would be very interesting to see how the young ace for the Bears bounce back today.

Bears proceed to lose a 1-0 game to USF where Devon Rodriguez ground into a double play in the Bears' best chance to score.

The Golden Bears did salvage the weekend with a double header sweep of Arkansas who came in to the weekend ranked 27th in the poll. Bears won 4-3 behind great pitching by Kyle Porter (improving to 2-0 after 5.2 inning of 4 hit, 1 unearned run) and then took game 2 by a score of 2-1 thanks to a 3-for-3 game by 2nd baseman Branden Farney (and an errant throw by the Razorbacks to allow the winning run to score).

Cal Softball (10-10, 2-3 last week in Hawaii Spring Fling tournament + home debut win over The Ohio State)

Pac-12 play also starts this weekend for Cal Softball, who are still trying to find their stride. The first opponent for the Bears in the Pac will be No.21/19 Stanfurd. Two of the three games this weekend will be broadcasted on the Pac-12 Networks.

Cal at Stanford (Boyd & Jill Smith Family Stadium, Stanford, Calif.)
Day Date Time (PT) Broadcast
Friday March 14 5:30 PM None
Saturday (DH) March 15 12 PM Pac-12 Networks
Saturday (DH) March 15 2 PM Pac-12 Networks
Live Stats: GoStanford.com
Game Info: Notes | Twitter (@CalSoftball) | Instagram (@CalSoftball)

Last Week, the Bears participated in the Hawaii Spring Fling tournament. Bears started out with a big 10-1 (5) win over host Hawaii and then took care of Pacific 5-1 before faltering against James Madison (0-3), Hawaii in a rematch (2-6), and James Madison again (0-3).

Bears then made their 2014 home debut against The Ohio State on Wednesday.

Which resulted in a 2-1 Cal victory.

Breana Kostreba led the Bears to victory with her a two-RBI single, and Stephanie Trzcinski pitched three hitless innings before Nisa Ontiveros clinched the win.

More from the Game Note:

WHO TO WATCH THIS WEEKEND
The Bears are batting .264 as a team, paced by Junior Cheyenne Cordes’s .396 batting average, three home runs and nine RBI and followed by junior Danielle Henderson’s .373 batting clip with a team-high seven homers and 16 RBI. Freshman Kylie Reed owns a .373 average with a team-leading 25 hits. Freshman Kylie Reed carries a six-game hit streak into the weekend and is batting .371 near the top of the lineup. Sophomore Nisa Ontiveros and freshman Katie Sutherland-Finch lead in game starts in the circle., carrying the team with a 3.14 and 3.82 ERA, respectively. Ontiveros has pitched the Bears to a bulk of their wins with her 7-4 record. On the rise lately is freshmanStephanie Trzcinski, who held the Buckeyes to three hitless innings and has seen action in four games since last weekend after being sidelined due to injury for a few weeks.

More photos of Cal Softball action from earlier this season:

It should be interesting to see how the Bears fare in conference play given the strength of the Pac. With star pitcher Jolene Henderson graduated, this year's team is still looking for more consistent pitching to lead them.

Cal Women's Water Polo (14-3, 1-0 in MPSF)

No.4 Cal Women's Water Polo has a big test tomorrow at No.1 and undefeated USC. That match at 4:30 pm PT will be on the Pac-12 Networks.

The Bears are coming off a 12-10 win over San Jose State in their conference opener last weekend. A performance that was good enough for the Bears to sweep the weekly MPSF awards.

Bears Sweep Weekly MPSF Awards
For the second time this season, the Bears swept MPSF honors last week. Freshman Roser Tarrago was named the MPSF/KAP 7 Player of the Week after scoring six goals during Cal’s 12-10 win over San Jose State in their MPSF opener. Freshman Madeline Trabucco took home MPSF/KAP 7 Newcomer of the Week honors on the heels of her 13-save performance in the win over the Spartans. On Jan. 27, junior Victoria Williams was named MPSF/KAP 7 Player of the Week and freshman Dora Antal was named the MPSF/KAP 7 Newcomer of the Week. The Bears have now had the MPSF/KAP 7 Newcomer of the Week five times this season.


Somewhat similar to the men's water polo team this past fall, the women has beaten everybody ranked below them but lost to the three teams above them in the rankings (USC, UCLA, and 'Furd). Cal and USC has met already in a tournament two weeks ago. That match was all USC, unfortunately, as the Trojans won 12-7.

GO BEARS!

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