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Golden Medals: Big Row wins and NCAA for Women's Water Polo, Tennis, Golf

It's time for May Madness to begin as the NCAA Postseason starts for Cal Women's Water Polo, Men's Tennis, Women's Tennis, Men's Golf, and Women's Golf. Got all that? Cal crew also swept all races at The Big Row last weekend.

By Ruey Yen
Golden Bears are competing for the NCAA Championships at Stanford this weekend.
Golden Bears are competing for the NCAA Championships at Stanford this weekend.
Cal Women's Water Polo Facebook

Cal Crew (both men and women) win The Big Row

From Redwood Shores, the Bears are triumphant in The Big Row over Stanford last Saturday. It was the 82nd Big Row in the stories competition between the two schools. For the men, the top ranked Golden Bears were able to best the 12th ranked Stanford.

The Cal men won all 3 races.

Cal Men's Crew Results

Varsity Eight
Results: 1. California (5:31.2), 2. Stanford (5:48.0)

Second Varsity Eight
Results: 1. California (5:46.1), 2. Stanford (6:02.4)

Freshman Eight
Results: 1. California (5:47.1), 2. Stanford (6:15.5)

The 2nd ranked Cal Women also were able to defeat their Palo Alto counterparts, ranked 6th in the nation. The women takes home the Lambert Cup. The Cal Varsity 8 closed out their regular season undefeated.

Cal Women's Crew Results

Varsity Eight
Results: 1. California (6:13.0), 2. Stanford (6:16.5)
Cal Lineup: Lindsay Meltz (coxswain), Kendall Chase (stroke), Ingvild Roenningen (7), Caileigh Filmer (6), Mia Croonquist (5), Jacinta Edmunds (4), Dorothee Beckendorff (3), Inger Kavlie (2), Rowan McKellar (bow)

Second Varsity Eight
Results: 1. California (6:24.3), 2. Stanford (6:30.2)
Cal Lineup: Hannah Christopher (coxswain), Roison Duffy (stroke), Charlotte Siering (7), Charlotte Passot (6), Maddie Wolf (5), Hunter Deuel (4), Danielle Struck (3), Sarah Schwartz (2), Stephanie Kraemer (bow)

Varsity Four
Results: 1. California (7:17.9), 2. Stanford (7:21.9)
Cal Lineup: Hannah Freeman (coxswain), Katie Kelly (stroke), Camilla Gardiner (3), Lisa Perrine (2), Katie De Haas (bow)

The Cal Men will race in the Pac-12 Championship next weekend and then head to New Jersey for the IRA Championship on May 29-31st.

From the Gold River near Sacramento, the Cal Women will race in the Pac-12 Championship next weekend and then the NCAA Championship on May 29-31st.

ROW ON YOU BEARS!

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Cal Rugby

May 29-31st will also be the date for Cal Rugby to try to retain their Rugby 7s national title for the 3rd straight year. Unfortunately, for the 3rd straight year, the Golden Bears fell just short of the BYU Cougars in the Varsity Cup final (the national championship for Rugby 15s).

Bears fell short by a score of 30-27 in a close contest. BYU never trailed in this one, jumping out to an early lead in what was essentially a home game for them at Rio Tinto Stadium just outside Salt Lake City.

Bears fought back though and actually had the chance to go on top at the very end before the match was over after a late Cal turnover.

Here are the match highlight from a BYU local station:

The Scoring Timeline vs. BYU

07:00 BYU (Seki Kofe) 5, (Jonny Linehan) 2

11:00 BYU (Jonny Linehan) 3

15:00 Jake Anderson 3

24:00 BYU (Josh Anderson) 5, (Jonny Linehan) 2

Halftime Score: BYU 17, California 3

42:00 Paul Bosco 5, Jake Anderson 2

50:00 Jake Anderson 5

58:00 BYU (Jonny Linehan) 3

60:00 BYU (Jared Whippy) 5, (Jonny Linehan) 2

62:00 Michael Bush 5

65:00 BYU (Jonny Linehan) 3

74:00 Anthony Salaber 5, Jake Anderson 2

Final Score: BYU 30, California 27

The Team vs. BYU

15. Anderson, 14. Battaglia, 13. Adolphus, 12. A. Salaber, 11. Honens, 10. Webb, 9. Bosco (Boyer @ 55:00), 1. Walsh, 2. Bush, 3. Vrame (Sullivan @ 68:00), 4. Kondrat, 5. Sina (Zerbino @ 72:00), 6. Hendrickson (Tandy @ 44:00, Gaffney @ 67:00, Tandy @ 74:00), 7. Gletzer, 8. Sweet

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Cal Women's Water Polo

The postseason starts today for the 4th ranked Cal Women's Water Polo squad, coming off a MPSF final defeat to UCLA, where the story was how the Bears beat Stanford in the semifinal for the first time since 2000, a span of 40 matches. Riding the high off that victory, the Bears will open play today against UC Irvine. The match will be streamed for free online via NCAA.com.

For those in the Bay Area, the championship is taking place down at The Farm.

Cal sophomore goalie standout Madeline Trabucco is featured in this week's Inside the Lair on CalBears.com.

CalBears.com: Why did you choose Cal?

Madeline Trabucco: I chose Cal because it is the No. 1 public university. The water polo was also a huge deal. They are top-5 in the country. I really wanted to compete at a top school. I just couldn’t go wrong with the combination of academics and sports.

CB: What’s the best part of being a Cal student-athlete?

MT: All the resources, just being able to go into the center and get everything you need. The biggest thing I’ve learned is to take advantage of all the resources we are offered.

CB: What do you see yourself doing after you graduate?

MT: I want to play water polo as long as I can. I’m kind of thinking about being an elementary school teacher because my dad teaches second grade. He was my second grade teacher. I’ve always grown up going to his classes. Being a teacher for young kids has always been something I wanted to do.

CB: What is your favorite restaurant around campus?

MT: Barney’s. I love cheeseburgers and I love milk shakes. It’s the best thing after a long practice.

And more specific questions about the NCAA's:

CB: What will it take for Cal to win a national championship?

MT: It will take all of us playing to our strengths, but playing as a unified team. I think the best thing that we’ve grown over the season is our team chemistry. It’s really picking up. We’re getting to know each other’s strengths and weaknesses. Just knowing each other’s jobs on the team will really make us win, hopefully.

CB: The team knocked off No. 1 Stanford in the MPSF Tournament semifinals and lost to No. 2 UCLA 9-8 in the championship game. What did that do for the team’s confidence?

MT: It was a huge confidence-booster. We played the best we’ve played the entire year. It’s great to see our potential really play out. Everything we’ve been working for really came together in (the Stanford) game. I think we saw a lot of things we need to work on, also. I think the most important thing to take away is we still have stuff to work on, but beating Stanford was a huge confidence-booster and we know what we are capable of now. Now it’s about executing at this tournament.

CB: Have you allowed yourself to fantasize about winning the national championship?

MT: All of us have fantasized about it before but our team is really focusing on one game at a time. Our focus is really on UCI on Friday afternoon. That’s the game we need to win to get to Saturday. The biggest thing is to take it game by game and not get ahead of ourselves. But obviously the ultimate goal is the reason why we’re playing.

Trabucco's play would be huge for the Bears this weekend. The Bears also heavily rely on the sophomore scoring trio of Dora Antal, Roser Tarrago, and Anna Illes who hails from Hungary, Spain, and Hungary, respectively.

While the Bears are considered a long shot to win the NCAA title this year, it would not be the biggest surprise in the world should the young Bears squad pull it off. Like the Stanford win has shown, the gap between Cal and the top 3 teams (UCLA, Stanford, and USC) has really closed this season.

Check out the full bracket here:

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Cal Women's Tennis - host NCAA 1st and 2nd round this weeeknd

3rd Seed Golden Bears host Bryant in Hellman Tennis Complex today. The winner will take on the winner of 30th ranked Houston and 33rd ranked Mississippi State tomorrow. All the matches are streamed live online.

Other than Cal women's crew, this is perhaps out best chance for a NCAA championship for the rest of the season (note that Rugby 7s and Men's Crew are not NCAA championships).

Cal Men's Tennis - in Austin for NCAA 1st and 2nd round this weekend

26th ranked Bears have a harder road to travel, having to go to Austin to compete against Texas A&M - Corpus Christi today. Should the Bears survive this round, they will take on the winner between 9th seed Texas and Navy tomorrow. Texas is the heavy favorite in that match.

Unfortunately, there are no livestream for this event from Austin (what's with that, given all the Texas Longhorn Network money?).

Update:

Bears took the doubles point, but the match is moving indoor due to rain.

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Cal Men's Golf - Lubbock Regional next week

Also playing in Texas are the Cal Men's Golf squad. They are playing in the Lubbock Regional from May 14-16.

This is a school record 9th straight NCAA berth for the Bears, who are seeded 5th out of the 13 schools at this regional. Top 5 teams from each of the 6 regional will advance to the NCAA Championship.

Cal Women's Golf - in St. George's Regional this weekend

After Day 1, the Bears are in a good position:

CAL LINEUP
1. Pauline Loulier – 68 (-3)
T16. Carly Childs – 75 (+4)
T32. Lucia Gutierrez – 77 (+6)
T32. Marthe Wold – 77 (+6)
T48. Hannah Suh – 79 (+8)

COMPETING TEAMS
1. USC – 293 (+9)
2. California – 297 (+13)
3. UNLV – 301 (+17)
4. Wisconsin – 303 (+19)
5. Stanford – 304 (+20)
6. New Mexico State – 305 (+21) 
7. Arkansas – 306 (+22)
T8. Virginia – 308 (+24)
T8. SMU – 308 (+24)
T10. TCU – 313 (+29)
T10. Middle Tennessee State – 313 (+29)
T12. San Diego State – 315 (+31)
T12. Denver – 315 (+31)
T14. Colorado – 316 (+32)
T14. Miami (Fla.) – 316 (+32)
16. Northern Arizona – 317 (+33)
17. Vanderbilt – 319 (+35)
18. Albany – 331 (+47)

Top 6 teams will advance.

HOLE ON YOU BEARS!

GO BEARS!

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