California volleyball will look to snap a three-match losing streak this weekend, continuing their latest road slate with a trip to North Carolina to face Wake Forest on Friday and NC State on Sunday. Both matches will be broadcast on ACCNX and will be the first time that the Golden Bears have visited either school.
 
Last weekend, Cal won its first set of the weekend but dropped the next six for losses at Georgia Tech and Clemson. Peyton DeJardin notched 14 kills against the Yellow Jackets, while Sophia Johnson posted 11 digs and Mikayla Hayden added three blocks to move into a tie for 10th in a career in program history (358). Four Bears recorded double-digit digs against the Tigers as Maria Știrbu earned her fifth double-double of the season with a career-best 16 digs as well as 30 assists.
 
At Wake Forest (9-12, 3-7 ACC): Friday, Oct. 31 – 3:30 p.m. PT/6:30 p.m. ET (Winston-Salem, N.C.)
Live Stream: ACCNX
Live Stats: StatBroadcast
Last Meeting: Oct. 4, 2024 (at Cal – Wake Forest won 3-0)
Bears vs. Demon Deacons All-Time Record: 0-1
 
The Demon Deacons have struggled defensively as a team this season, allowing its opponents to hit a collective .226 on the year and .258 in ACC play while posting just 2.11 blocks per set; however, former ACC Freshman of the Year Emma Farrell is having a standout senior season on that side of the ball with five outings with 20-plus digs and a pair of double-doubles as well as a 4.13 digs-per-set average. Wake Forest’s offense runs through setters Becca Bellows and Rian Baker, who have helped the squad put down 13.04 kills per set. Paige Crawford is the Demon Deacons’ kills leader with 233 on the year, while Patrycja Lagida is their most efficient server with an aces-per-set pace of 0.44 (good for third-best in the conference).
 
Wake Forest is fresh off a pair of road losses at No. 7 SMU and No. 4 Pitt, both sweeps. Its three conference wins have come against Duke (3-1), NC State (3-0) and Clemson (3-0).
 
At NC State (10-10, 3-7 ACC): Sunday, Nov. 2 – 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET (Raleigh, N.C.)
Live Stream: ACCNX
Live Stats: StatBroadcast
Last Meeting: Oct. 6, 2024 (at Cal – Cal won 3-0)
Bears vs. Wolfpack All-Time Record: 1-0
 
The Wolfpack is one of the ACC’s top defensive teams, averaging 14.45 digs per set and 2.42 blocks per set, but have not been as successful on offense (11.61 kills per set, .165 hitting percentage). 6-foot-5 freshman Talia Francom is a force at the net, averaging 1.41 blocks per set (17th-best in the NCAA) on the year; she has only gotten better since the start of ACC play with a pace of 1.53 blocks per set. Offensively, Courtney Bryant leads the team with 238 kills and 28 aces on the year.
 
NC State has won conference tilts against Florida State (3-2), Wake Forest (3-1) and Clemson (3-1) this year. The Wolfpack will have faced three-straight top-10 teams before meeting the Bears on Sunday, having been swept at No. 4 Pitt and No. 7 SMU last weekend and welcoming No. 5 Stanford on Friday.
 
HAYDEN’S WORLD
Senior middle blocker Mikayla Hayden is posting her best season yet to cap off an impressive collegiate career. After surpassing 300 career blocks early in the season, Hayden became just the third Bear to post a pair of double-digit block performances within a seven-day span, recording 10 blocks each at Syracuse (Oct. 10) and against No. 14 Miami (Oct. 16). Those performances also marked her first two double-doubles since arriving at Cal, as she also totaled 17 kills (.452) against the Orange and 12 kills (.450) against the Hurricanes. Hayden was named the ACC Defensive Player of the Week on Oct. 20 after averaging 1.60 blocks per set against Miami and Florida State the previous weekend, followed by a national Rotation of the Week nod the next day. She is currently tied for 48th in the nation with 95 blocks on the year and has 358 in her collegiate career – tied for 10th-most all-time at Cal.
 
UPSET ALERT
On Oct. 16, the Bears shocked the volleyball world by pulling out a gritty five-set win over No. 14 Miami at Haas Pavilion, earning their first ranked win since the 2020-21 season against No. 15 Stanford and posting their first reverse sweep over a ranked opponent since 1988, when they defeated No. 11 Pacific.  As a team, Cal held the Hurricanes to just .163 hitting while two Bears – Mikayla Hayden (12 kills, 10 blocks) and Maria ?tirbu (45 assists, 10 digs) posted double-doubles. Other top contributors included Peyton DeJardin (19 kills, 5 blocks), Ashley Li (12 kills), Francesca Popescu (10 digs) and Dominique Phills (5 blocks).
 
FOREVER NO. 1
For the first time in program history, the Bears retired the jersey of one of their legends as 2010 American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) National Player of the Year Carli Lloyd had her No. 1 raised into the rafters before the Bears’ ACC home opener against Louisville on Oct. 3. An outstanding setter, Lloyd finished her collegiate career (2007-10) with 5,697 assists – sixth-most in Pac-10 history – and 1,094 digs as well as three AVCA All-America honors, leading the Bears to four-straight NCAA Tournament appearances, two Final Fours (2007, 10) and an NCAA title match (2010). Also a dominant attacker, Lloyd holds the program record for the three highest hitting percentages in a four-set match, including a .750 (nine kills, zero errors) outing against Washington State on November 6, 2009. She won a bronze medal with Team USA at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro and won a veritable slew of national titles with club teams all over the world before co-founding League One Volleyball (LOVB) Pro and winning the league championship with LOVB Austin in its inaugural season (2025). Lloyd was inducted into the Cal Athletics Hall of Fame in 2023.
 
INTO THE HALL
Cal Athletics inducted former Golden Bear Hana Čutura into its Hall of Fame in October as the eighth Cal volleyball player to receive the honor. Čutura, who played in Berkeley from 2006-09, is the only Cal player to surpass 2,000 career kills (2,004) and posted 628 as a senior, second only to fellow Cal Hall of Famer Mia Jerkov on the program’s single-season list. She was thrice named an AVCA All-American (2007-09) and helped lead the Bears to four-straight NCAA Tournaments, including the team’s first Final Four appearance in 2007 (a year in which she was also named the NCAA Tournament Gainsville Regional MVP). Čutura was named the Pac-10 Player of the Year in 2009, becoming just the second Bear in history (Sylvie Monnet, 1983) to receive a conference player of the year award.
 
BIG DIGS FOR JOHNSON
Cal libero Sophia Johnson was named the ACC Defensive Player of the Week on Sept. 29 for her outstanding play in the Bears’ ACC-opening weekend at Virginia Tech and Virginia, averaging 5.29 digs per set to bring her string of double-digit digs performances to five and helping her team to its best conference start (2-0) since 2011. It was the first weekly recognition of Johnson’s career as well as the first defensive award by any Bear since Kat Brown in 2012.
 
SISTER, SISTER
Senior setter Natalie Lau, who began the 2024 season on the bench but stepped into that year’s starting role after five games due to her teammate’s season-ending injury, is joined by her sister Elise Lau (a freshman defensive specialist) on the court as one of just three pairs of sisters on the same Power 4 team this season. The Brisbane natives, who played high school ball for St. Ignatius and club ball for Vision, grew up as Cal fans, attending as many volleyball, football and basketball games as they could and dreaming of one day representing the Blue & Gold. According to head coach Jen Malcom, the Laus are “two of the most competitive players on our team.” This is the first year that they have played on any team together, having grown up too far apart in age to be part of the same high school or club squads.
 
NEW BEARS ON THE BLOCK
Cal brings seven new players to its roster this season in the form of five freshmen and two transfers, making up nearly half of the Bears’ squad.  The first-year players are composed of defensive specialists Francesca Popescu (Johns Creek, Georgia) and Elise Lau (Brisbane), outside hitter Arissa Carbonara (Cuero, Texas), opposite Annemarie O’Gara (Phoenix) and setter Maria Știrbu (Bucharest, Romania). Between them, they bring national team experience (Știrbu), two All-America honors (Popescu), a national title (O’Gara), three All-State honors (Carbonara, Popescu) and a tournament title (Lau). The transfers, sophomore outside hitter Dominique Phills (Iowa) and junior middle blocker Ashleigh Woodruff (Stony Brook), each bring valuable experience to the young roster, bolstering positions that will have at least one player graduating at the end of this season. As of Oct. 29, Popescu has played in every set of the Bears’ season and leads the team in service aces, while Știrbu took over in mid-September as Cal’s full-time starting setter and Phills has started in all but one of Cal’s matches this season.
 
 
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