Golden Medals: Vaughn equals Cal single season HR record, Women’s Rowing at NCAA, 24 Track & Field Bears at NCAA prelims

Cal may have held the graduation ceremonies last weekend, but the 2017-18 Cal Athletics season is not yet over. Cal Athletics have two more decent chances to win the school’s 1st team national title (98th overall) in these next two weekends with Cal Women’s Rowing and Cal Men’s Rowing racing this and next weekends, respectively. The school year will wrap up for good two weekends from now when individual Cal Bears compete at the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships.

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Homerun Derby in the Desert? Cal Baseball closes regular season at ASU

Okay, there is a chance that Andrew Vaughn may pitch a bit in relief and face ASU’s Spencer Torkelson in this last 3 games of the regular season, but the two leading homerun hitters in the Pac-12 and the country probably won’t directly face-off. Nonetheless, the two NorCal natives will be on the same field to close out the Pac-12 regular season this weekend (more specifically Thursday to Saturday).

With two games to go (Friday and Saturday), the ASU freshman 1st baseman Torkelson leads the Cal sophomore 1st baseman Andrew Vaughn by two homers - 25 to 23.

Although it’s merely 5% of the total vote, Cal fans should remember to vote for Andrew Vaughn who is carrying his insane numbers of 0.407/0.533/0.835 through to the final week of the regular season (52 games in) for the Golden Spikes Award.

Unfortunately, the season will likely end on Saturday for the California Golden Bears (30-22, 14-14 in Pac-12). Three costly losses in the past four games have effectively knocked the Bears out of making a late push on to the NCAA bubble. Despite one of the best offense in the country, Cal just lacked the pitching depth to have too many bad losses to end up with a RPI in the 80’s. The 64 team NCAA field for baseball will be announced on Sunday.

Cal 3, Creighton 5

Bears had an early 3-0 lead (should have been more but there were some missed opportunities early), but Cal senior Matt Ladrech could not pitch around a costly error by 3rd baseman Sam Wezniak to give the hosts a 4-spot in B5. Creighton’s starter Tapani really settled down after the early game struggles.

Cal 2, Creighton 4

Cal head coach Mike Neu used both of his Saturday and Sunday starter in effectively the last meaning game of the season. Unfortunately, both Jared Horn and Aaron Shortridge gave up two runs each in two innings of work. Vaughn had 2 hits and Eden had 3 hits but the Bears just could not put together a big inning.

Cal 7, Creighton 2

In the same stadium as the annual College World Series, Andrew Vaughn put on a show going 3 for 5 with a double and a homer. The homer, his 23rd of the year, ties Vaughn with Xavier Nady for the single season record. Nady accomplished his feat in 1999. Like Nady, Vaughn will have at least another year in the Cal uniform after hitting these many homers. Nady, by the way, was drafted in the 2000 MLB Draft and became one of the few players to make his MLB debut (for the San Diego Padres) without any time spent in the minor leagues.

This was a bullpen effort with Vaughn making a rare 2018 appearance on the mound to finish this one out.

Cal 4, ASU 5

Cal senior Matt Ladrech finished his Cal career with a solid start of 7 IP, 4 H, 3 R, 1 BB, 3 K, but the potential late first round pick in the 2018 MLB Draft that is Cal closer Tanner Dodson (is a team going to allow Dodson to stay a two-way player? Dodson also plays CF and hit 3rd for the Bears) faltered in the end. Cal Bears rallied from an early deficit to take a 4-3 lead into the 9th. ASU mounted a late rally for a rare walkoff win.

Both Andrew Vaughn (0 for 3, 2 walks) and Spencer Torkelson (0 for 2, 1 walk) went homerless in this game 1. Korey Lee hit a solo shot for the Bears.

Game 2 of this series is tonight (Friday) at 7pm PT. The season finale is Saturday night at 6pm PT. Pac-12 Bay Area will have the action for both games.

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Cal Women’s Rowing at NCAA Championships

Be sure to check back on Sunday morning for the links to the Championship A-Final races where the Golden Bears will look to upset the Washington Huskies for the program’s 4th NCAA team title (and 5th overall).

The Golden Bears will be in action starting today from Saratoga, Florida. Barring some really shocking developments, all three boats - Varsity 4 (V4), 2nd Varsity 8 (2V8), and Varsity 8 (V8) should qualify for Sunday’s A-Finals. The team championships will be awarded based on the point total from the three races with the V8 race being the most important for it will count double and serve as the potential tie-breaker.

I will have much more on Cal Women’s Crew, including the lineups of each boats, for the Sunday post. The Washington Huskies made history by sweep all three races last year. While Cal V8 bested the Huskies in the dual meet earlier this year, Huskies finished ahead at the Pac-12 (Stanford also finished ahead of the Bears at the Pac-12). The Cal boats are seeded 2nd, 2nd, and 3rd for V4, 2V8, and V8, respectively.

ROW ON YOU BEARS!

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Cal Track and Field Athletes at NCAA West Prelims

Started on Thursday, 24 Golden Bears have been competing from Sacramento for a spot at the NCAA Championships in two weeks from Eugene, Oregon on June 6th-9th. 12 men will compete in 14 events while 12 women will compete in 12 events. In each event, the top 12 finishers will advance to the NCAA Championships.

So far, one Bear has punched his ticket to Oregon. Congratulations to junior Silviu Bocancea whose clutch final hammer throw set a new personal record of 215-11 (also 3rd best in Cal history) to give him a 4th place finish and a spot in the NCAA championships.

We will have the recap of all of the Cal qualifiers next weekend. The favorites to advance include Lauren Martinez in women’s pole vault, Tuomas Kaukolahti (the Pac-12 champ) in men’s triple jump, Ashtyn Davis (from Cal Football) in men’s hurdles, McKay Johnson, Peter Simon, and Malik McMorris (also of Cal Football fame) in men’s shot put, Camryn Rogers in women’s hammer throw, and Isabella Marten and Ashley Anderson in women’s triple jump.

Below is the schedule for all 24 Cal Bears this weekend.

THURSDAY

FIELD EVENTS

12:00 PM Hammer Men First Round Silviu Bocancea (2-3)

12:00 PM Javelin Women First Round Chrissy Glasmann (2-9)

7:30 PM Long Jump Women First Round Noelle Schiller (1-11)

TRACK EVENTS

4:30 PM 400 Hurdles Men First Round Paramveer Chohan (5-3)

FRIDAY

FIELD EVENTS

12:00 PM Discus Men First Round McKay Johnson (2-13) Malik McMorris (1-6)

4:30 PM Discus Women First Round Amarie Bremel (2-4) Kendall Mader (2-1)

4:30 PM Pole Vault Women First Round Lauren Martinez (2-3)

TRACK EVENTS

4:30 PM 110 Hurdles Men First Round Ashtyn Davis (6-3)

7:00 PM 400 Hurdles Men Quarterfinal -- Paramveer Chohan

8:20 PM 3000 Steeplechase Men Quaterfinal Takeshi Okada (3-16) Kai Benedict (1-2)

9:00 PM 3000 Steeplechase Women Quarterfinal Annie Boos (2-13)

SATURDAY

FIELD EVENTS

12:00 PM Hammer Women First Round Camryn Rogers (3-2) Destiny Parker (1-4) Emma Seyer (1-11)

4:30 PM Shot Put Men First Round McKay Johnson (4-5) Peter Simon (4-11) Malik McMorris (1-9) Joshua Johnson (2-10)

4:30 PM Triple Jump Women First Round Isabella Marten (3-7) Ashley Anderson (3-9)

7:30 PM Triple Jump Men First Round Tuomas Kaukolahti (4-8) Tristan Meye (2-10)

TRACK EVENTS

7:05 PM 110 Hurdles Men Quarterfinal --Ashtyn Davis

8:05 PM 5000 Meters Men Semifinal Garrett Corcoran (1-2)

8:45 PM 5000 Meters Women Semifinal Brie Oakley (2-15)

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Senior Marthe Wold of Cal Women’s Golf places 83rd at the NCAA Championships

With rounds of 76, 77, and 77, Cal senior Marthe Wold concludes her stellar collegiate career by finishing in a tie for 83rd place at +14 as the lone representative of Cal Women’s Golf in the 2018 NCAA Championships from Karsten Creek Golf Club in Stillwater, Oklahoma last Sunday.

The senior from Norway had two Top-5 finishes in her last season, including at the NCAA Regional that booked her place at the year ending NCAA Championships. Wold also played at the NCAA Championships in her freshman and junior seasons when Cal Women’s Golf made the NCAA as a team. She finished 22nd in 2017 and 105th in 2015.

Congratulations to Marthe on a great Cal career and best of luck to the Interdisciplinary Major in her future endeavors. You can learn more about Marthe and her love of DeCal classes in this feature in the embedded tweet below.

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Cal Tennis players are ousted in first or second rounds of NCAA Singles and Doubles championships

With all of the Cal entrants on both the women’s and men’s side of the NCAA singles and doubles championships not seeded highly, it is hardly surprising that the Bears made early exits from the competitions.

On the women’s side, freshmen Julia Rosenqvist and Anna Bright joins junior Olivia Hauger as the three Bears all made their individual NCAA postseason debut. Hauger lost to a top 16 (9-16) seeded Anna Danilina of Florida in the first round by a 7-5, 6-0 result. Cal’s No.1 Rosenqvist lost to McCray of OK State by a 4-6, 6-1, 6-3 in the first round while Cal’s No.2 Bright lost to O’Loughlin of Denver by a 7-6(1), 6-2 result also in the first round. All 3 Bears will be back to hopefully bring the Cal Women’s Tennis team back to the NCAA postseason in the team competition. Speaking of the team competition, Stanford once again won the NCAA team title - you know, the whole Pac-12 being the Conference of Champions thing.

On the men’s side, the two Cal representatives are both seniors. Billy Griffith scores a big upset win in the first round over the 8th overall seed, Matsumura of Kentucky, by a 6-4, 6-3 result before losing in the 2nd round 6-1, 7-5 to Salazar of Arkansas. In doubles, Griffith and fellow senior J.T. Nishimura had a tough draw and lost the first round to the 2nd overall seeds by a 6-4, 6-4 result.

GO BEARS!