Cal Olympic Sports Roundup - Women's Tennis swept LA schools to rise to No.6 in the country

One team that I may have short changed last week, in my article about which team can bring home the next NCAA (so no Rugby or men's crew) Championships is the Cal Women's Tennis.

Cal Women's Tennis (14-4, 7-0 in the Pac-12)

In a dramatic come-from-behind fashion, the Golden Bears were able to sweep the LA schools (No.13 USC and No.3 UCLA) last week. The Bears defeated the Trojans 4-0 on Friday then mounted a great rally to beat the Bruins 4-3 after being down 3-1. Sophomore Lynn Chi was able to rally from being down 5-2 in the third set to force a tiebreaker which she won 7-5 to get this big win for the Bears. For her on the court heroic, Chi was named Pac-12 Player of the Week.

Against UCLA, the doubles point went to the Bruins despite Cal's freshman pair of Manasse and Starr upsetting the 5th ranked Bruins pair 8-6 in No.2 doubles. Bruins were able to win in No.1 and No.2 singles, but the Bears swept the rest with No.4 Lynn Chi and No.5 Klara Fabikova winning in 3rd set tiebreakers.

By the end of the weekend, the Bears found themselves now ranked No.6 in the country, up from No.12. To make things even sweeter, they leap frogged 'Furd (now No.7) in the process. The Bears are also in sole first place in the conference.

Pac-12 women's tennis STANDINGS

Teams	Conf	Overall
CALIFORNIA	7-0	14-4
STANFORD	6-1	14-1
UCLA	6-1	18-2
ARIZONA	5-2	16-3
ARIZONA STATE	5-2	18-4
USC	5-2	14-6
WASHINGTON STATE	2-5	17-8
UTAH	2-6	11-8
OREGON	1-6	7-11
WASHINGTON	1-7	11-8
COLORADO	0-8	8-12

This weekend, the Bears travel up to No.47 Washington State and Oregon. The Bears will then conclude their regular season at Stanfurd next Saturday (after a non-conference meet with Sacramento State).

Between the result this past weekend and the ITA Indoors run earlier in the season (stopped by eventual champs and current No.1 Duke in the semifinals), maybe just maybe the Bears, with a nice blend of veterans and youngsters, can make some history and win their first NCAA team championship in school history.

Cal Rugby (16-2)

Yep, there are now a number other than 0 on the losing side of the record for Cal Rugby. After sweeping through PAC Rugby conference, the Bears suffered a 40-3 loss at University of British Columbia to lose the "World Cup", ending a 8 year streak of the Cup only knowing the comfort of Berkeley. The Bears were without senior captain Seamus Kelly for the UBC match due to Kelly's obligation to the US National team.

To follow up the UBC loss, the Bears suffered a 55-31 loss at St. Mary's to close out the regular season. Since St. Mary's is not competing in the Varsity Cup, the Bears won't be able to get revenge until the next year. Both Kelly and the previous hurt Jake Anderson were back for the St. Mary's match. I believe St. Mary's is playing for the other Collegiate rugby championships.

The Rugby post season is upon us as the No.1 Golden Bears will enjoy a bye this week while waiting to see whether they will play Oklahoma or UCLA down at UCLA next week (Saturday, April 19th). A full bracket of the Varsity Cup can be found here. Should the Bears be able to defeat their opponent next weekend, they will get to host the semi-finals on April 26th before the final will take place the following week at Salt Lake City.

Cal Track and Field

The Bears will host Furd in the Big Meet tomorrow. This means that we can check out this feature on Cal's Malaina Payton.

Actually, the men's track and field are having a great season in dual meet. They are currently ranked No.2 in the country in dual meet with a shot to move to the top spot if they can take care of business against Furd tomorrow.

Track and Field News Dual Meet Rankings

1. Texas A&M (2-0)
2. California (5-0)
3. Oregon (1-0)
4. Nebraska (3-0)
5. Arkansas (3-0)
6. Washington State (1-0)
7. Purdue (5-1)
8. UCLA (0-1)
9. Long Beach State (6-0)
10. Akron (5-0)
11. Arizona State (0-0)
12. Navy (3-0)
13. BYU (0-0)
14. Arizona (0-1)
15. LSU (1-1)
16. Texas (0-1)
17. Texas Tech (0-2)
18. Washington (0-0)
19. Indiana Stae (6-0)
20. Princeton (2-1)
21. Ole Miss (0-0)
22. Cal Poly (4-0)
23. Air Force (2-1)
24. Michigan State (3-0)
25. Wisconsin (1-0)

Cal Lacrosse

The Bears finally ended their long losing streak by posting a 11-10 road win at Detroit. The Bears will face Michigan on Saturday before one last home match on Tuesday against Fresno State.

The official Senior Day celebration didn't go as planned as the Bears lost 20-15 to USC.

Cal Athletics did post a video this past week on Cal Lacrosse alum Stephanie Smith's battle with brain cancer.

Despite her treatment (which includes a brain surgery), Smith has done a 5K in Philadelphia last fall a mere 5 month later, a half marathon in Las Vegas two weeks later, and is doing another race (5K Race for Hope) in DC this May. Cal fans can support Stephanie Smith and her cause by visiting stephstrong.com.

Other Cal Actions from this past week

Both Cal Baseball and Cal Softball were swept last week. While Softball losing to a top 5 ranked Arizona State is sort of understandable, the Bears were never in any of the game. Softball also managed to get beat by St. Mary in the middle of the week to drop their record to 20-15.

Cal Baseball (14-15, 3-6) got edged 3 times up at Pullman by Washington State, including in the 10th inning on Sunday. The Bears will travel to Arizona State (the school that has the most MLB players currently with 11, 3 ahead of Cal which is in 4th place) this weekend.

Cal Men's Tennis on the road, could not handle No.2 and No.3 USC and UCLA, respectively. Their record is now 12-5, 2-2 in the conference.

GO BEARS!