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Golden Medals: Historic Cal Women's Gymnastic win over UCLA, New Golden Bears in Soccer

Cal Women's Gymnastics continues to get "one day better" and "strive" to ascend to the best in the Pac.

By Ruey Yen
Toni-Ann Williams and the Golden Bears scored a victory over UCLA for the first time since 1985
Toni-Ann Williams and the Golden Bears scored a victory over UCLA for the first time since 1985
Cal Women's Gymnastics Facebook

Schedule:

Three different sports (in addition to basketball) are going to be featured on Pac-12 Networks this week.

This weekend Bearathon has Men's Swimming leading off. At 2 pm PT today, Cal Men's Swimming will visit USC.

On Saturday at 11am PT, Cal Rugby will vie for the "World Cup" (well, it's the home leg of the home-and-home) against the University British Columbia Thunderbirds on the Pac-12 Networks (we will have an open thread for this match for you all to discuss).

To close out the weekend (if you somehow has Chinese New Year off...to recover from the Super Bowl party) or to kick off the week, Cal Women's Gymnastics will host Arizona at 7 pm PT, also on the Pac-12 Networks.

It is a busy weekend for Cal Athletics. Women's Tennis are in Madison, Wisconsin to try to win the ITA Women's Team Indoor Championship. Cal Men's Tennis are taking on Texas and TCU from Austin.

Closer to the Bay Area (it's not just the Super Bowl that is taking place this weekend), Women's Water Polo will play in the Stanford Invitational. Men's Gymnastics will again face off against Stanford and Michigan from The Farm on Saturday.

Fri,
Feb 5
 M Swimming & Diving at USC Los Angeles, CA 2:00 p.m.
Pac-12 Networks
Fri,
Feb 5
 W Tennis ITA National Women's Team Indoor Championships: Wisconsin Madison, WI 4:30 p.m. Live Stats
Fri,
Feb 5
 W Basketball Stanford Berkeley, CA 7:00 p.m. Pac-12 Bay Area ▪ KALX 90.7 FM ▪ Live Stats ▪Promotions ▪ Tickets ▪ Twitter
Sat,
Feb 6
 W Tennis ITA National Women's Team Indoor Championships Madison, WI All Day Live Stats
Sat,
Feb 6
 Track & Field All Comers & High School Meet Berkeley, CA All Day
Sat,
Feb 6
 Rugby vs. British Columbia Berkeley, CA 11:00 a.m.
Pac-12 Networks
Sat,
Feb 6
 W Water Polo Stanford Invitational: Pacific Stanford, CA 11:00 a.m.
Sat,
Feb 6
 M Tennis at Big 12/Pac-12 Challenge: Texas Austin, TX 12:00 p.m.
Sat,
Feb 6
 M Basketball Stanford Berkeley, CA 1:00 p.m. ESPN2 ▪ Live Stats
Sat,
Feb 6
 M Gymnastics at Stanford, Michigan, California Burnham Pavilion- Stanford, CA 4:00 p.m.
Sat,
Feb 6
 W Water Polo Stanford Invitational: UC Irvine Stanford, CA 5:45 p.m.
Sun,
Feb 7
 W Tennis ITA National Women's Team Indoor Championships Madison, WI All Day Live Stats
Sun,
Feb 7
 M Tennis Big 12/Pac-12 Challenge: TCU Austin, TX 8:00 a.m.
Sun,
Feb 7
 W Water Polo Stanford Invitational: UC Davis Stanford, CA 9:10 a.m.
Sun,
Feb 7
 W Water Polo Stanford Invitational: TBD Stanford, CA TBA
Mon,
Feb 8
 W Tennis ITA National Women's Team Indoor Championships Madison, WI All Day Live Stats
Mon,
Feb 8
 W Gymnastics Arizona Berkeley, CA 7:00 p.m.
Pac-12 Networks
▪ Live Stats ▪ Twitter

Cal Women's Gymnastics - 1st win over UCLA since 1985!

Bears opened their 2016 home schedule in style on Monday night. With the support of the home crowd, the Bears raised their performances and swept the 5th ranked UCLA Bruins across all events to win a regular season meet over the Bruins for the first time since 1985 (Bears have finished ahead of the Bruins in a multi-school meet once in the interim).

Toni-Ann Williams won 3 events herself in vaults, bars, and floor.

It is of little surprise that Williams won the Pac-12 Gymnast of the Week honor.

The Bears are back at Haas on Monday. Be sure to go check out these high flying girls in action in person, if you can.

Cal Rugby hosts UBC on Saturday

The biggest rival for Cal Rugby is visiting Berkeley this Saturday. With apologies to UCLA (but not so much to Stanford), the University of British Columbia Thunderbirds are the primary rival for our Sturdy Golden Bears (yes, BYU is also in the mix but it is not guaranteed that the Bears play them every year).

The two teams play for this "World Cup" (named after a newspaper) trophy yearly. The trophy is awarded to the winning team with total points as the second tie-breaker after a home-and-home between the two squads.

The Bears are coming off an easy 79-0 win over Cal Poly last week to move their 15s record to 5-0. How dominant have the Bears been so far? The Cal ruggers have yet to allow a point to the opposition after sweeping through the UC schools in the opening weekend. Through 5 matches, the Bears have outscored their opponents by a 280 to ZERO margin. This is including the fact that the first three matches played by the Bears were shortened due to the tournament nature of the Storr Classic hosted by UCLA.

Expect the Bears to be challenged for the first time in 2016 this Saturday.

By the way, Cal legend and CGB Hall of Famer, head coach Jack Clark saw his contract extended to 2021 by the University. Equally as important, coach Tom Billup (who was inducted to USA Rugby Hall of Fame last year, an year after Jack Clark) has been promoted to the new title of Associate Head Coach. Both are very well deserved contract extensions and honors.

Cal Soccer - New Golden Bears

The National Signing Day on Wednesday was not limited to just football. We have some news on some new Futbol Golden Bears that have agreed to matriculate in Berkeley.

Cal Women's Soccer signed 6 new Golden Bears.

They are:

Both Kim and Corbin are US Soccer Youth National Team players. Lakeman is a member of the Canadian Youth National Team. It would appear that the Cal recruiting is still buoyed by the Alex Morgan effect.

For the Cal men, the Bears added 5 new faces, including one that has already enrolled.

They are:

That's 3 US Soccer Youth National Team members in this class as head coach Kevin Grimes reloads in the hope of bringing the Bears back to being National Title contenders again.

Welcome to the Cal Family, all of our new signees!

Cal Swimming

The dual meet seasons are about to come to an end, but there are two more meets for Cal men's swimming.

The Cal men took care of Bakersfield on Thursday by a final of 119-113. Yes, that score looks deceivingly close for the 2nd ranked Bears, but this was an opportunity for Coach Dave Durden to try some new lineups and allow many of the key players to post qualifying time in different events, providing Durden and the Bears with some nice flexibility once the NCAA Championships roll around in late March.

The Bears will take on USC today, putting their 28 straight dual meet win streak to the test, at 2pm with the meet being broadcasted on the Pac-12 Networks.

Bears will conclude their dual meet season at Stanford two weeks from tomorrow on February 20th.

The Cal women have this week off, but will conclude their dual meet season at Stanford next Saturday.

Bears are coming off dual meets down in LA last week. Against USC, the Bears were edged in the final relay to lose 147 to 153. The team did bounce back in a strong way the next day, however, when they defeated UCLA by a score of 185-114, breaking several pool records at the storied UCLA home pool.


Cal Women's Tennis - ITA Indoors Championships this weekend

Just how good are Cal Women's Tennis this year, we are about to find out as the 6th ranked and 4th seeded Bears take on Wisconsin (yum...cheese curds) at the ITA Indoors Championships. Should the Bears survive and advance, they would need to do that 3 times to make it to the finals on Monday.

Winner of Cal-Wisconsin will face the winner of Texas A&M (5 seed)-Virginia. A potential Sunday match has the Bears against top overall seed Vanderbilt. The 2nd and 3rd seeds of the tournament are Georgia and North Carolina, respectively.

Bears are lead by the Pac-12 Players of the Week from two weeks ago in Maegan Manasse.

Cal Men's Tennis - Face Texas and TCU in Austin this weekend

The Cal men had an easy tuneups last weekend against Hawaii and San Francisco.

The 24th ranked Bears face far more difficult challenge this weekend down in Austin (yum...BBQ) against No.26 Texas and No.2 TCU.

It should be a good challenge.

Cal Women's Water Polo - Stanford Invitational this weekend

5th ranked Bears (7-1) will face some stiffer challenge this weekend at the Stanford Invitational. Bears will face No.12 Pacific, No.10 UC Irvine, and No.8 UC Davis before a TBD matchup.

All 8 schools in this tournament are ranked in the top 25. Should the Bears run through these three matches with wins, I believe they will most likely face top ranked Stanford in that 4th match (feel free to correct me, if I'm wrong though).

Cal Men's Gymnastics

7th ranked Cal Men's Gymnastics may have finished 3rd behind top ranked Oklahoma and 6th ranked Iowa last weekend, nevertheless, they posted their 2nd best overall team score of the year.

They will take on 2nd ranked Stanford, for the 4th time, and Michigan on Saturday night down at the Farm.

Despite the 3rd place finish, Taka Kawada was named MPSF Gymnast of the Week.

Bears will remain on the road until two home meets to close out the regular season on March 11th and 13th.

GO BEARS!

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