Golden Crowns: Cal Baseball RHP Jared Horn, Beach Volleyball duo Merino & Inman earn Pac-12 weekly honors

Cal junior pitcher Jared Horn is Pac-12 Pitcher of the Week

Although his season started a month late due to an appendectomy right at the start of the season, junior RHP Jared Horn has emerged as an ace for the surging Cal Baseball squad that desperately needed some pitching stability entering this season.

Horn is effectively the only tradition starting pitcher for the California Golden Bears, who got one much needed win over the weekend at UCLA to jump 20 spots in RPI to 44th in the country. Horn struck out a career best 10 batters in a dominant outing in that game.

Highly heralded out of high school, Jared Horn finally put up great numbers in his 3rd season. Horn was great for his past three starts, but finally earning the Pac-12 Pitcher of the Week honor after outdueling UCLA’s Ryan Garcia, the Pac-12 Pitcher of the Week honoree for the past two straight weeks. Horn downplayed his great outing in the postgame interview with the Pac-12 Networks last Friday.

Golden Bears routed Sacramento State on Tuesday night before hosting a good Oregon Ducks team (32nd in the RPI) this weekend at Evans Diamond. Jared Horn should be starting that middle game (Saturday) yet again with the Bears using “openers” for the 1st and 3rd games.

Cal Beach Volleyball duo senior Mia Merino and sophomore Alexia Inman are Pac-12 Pair of the Week

Head coach Meagan Owusu may have found something great when she paired senior Mia Merino (former Cal player on the top pair) with sophomore Alexia Inman (partner with Cal star Mima Mirkovic in the offseason) together for the first time this past weekend. The two players joined forces at Court 4 for the Bears in beating No.7 Cal Poly (21-17, 21-17 to help Cal win 3-2) and No.20 Stanford (21-16, 13-21, 15-7 to help Cal win 5-0).

Continuing to improve every season, Cal Beach Volleyball earned their best ranking in program history this week. Dig Magazine has the Bears as the 7th best team while the AVCA poll has the Bears at No.10.

Golden Bears earned the 3rd seed for the Pac-12 Tournament this weekend in Los Angeles. Bears will face ASU in the first round with a likely match against 2nd seed USC in the second round. The Pac-12 tournament will again be in the double elimination format.

The only teams to have won the NCAA Beach Volleyball championships are USC (twice) and UCLA. For the NCAA tournament, there are only two at-large bids in addition to the 6 automatic bids. Cal Bears would need a very strong showing at the Pac-12 Championships (likely the title) to advance to their first NCAA Beach Volleyball championship.

GO BEARS!