Cal played Washington, USC and Arizona State last week in the Pac-12 Championship, and although they dominated the Huskies on the first day, losses to the Trojans and Sun Devils on the second day eliminated the Bears from the tournament.
Cal had a strong start to the championship with a 3-0 win over Washington. Sierra Cuffo and Alexandria Young-Gomez, along with Emma Donley and Kendall Peters, defeated the Huskies in a close game, winning by just four points.
Graduate student Lara Booth and junior Ella Dreipholz defeated their opponents 21-17, 21-12. An early sweep by the Bears ended the game ahead of schedule, leaving Cal's No. 3 and No. 5 pair with an unfinished game.
Booth and Dreibholz are a relatively new pair. They have only played a few games together recently after helping each other in preseason matches. Dreipholz played with sophomore Portia Sherman for the majority of her matches this season, but she said the switch to playing with Booth was an easy adjustment.
“We're both very calm and collected,” Dreibholz said. “Our style of play is very similar, we're both very accurate. (We're) probably going to shoot more than we're going to hold the ball. We're both upperclassmen and we're both very accurate. I have gained a lot of experience and can rely on it even in tough situations.”
The Bears advanced to play No. 1 USC the next day, with Sherman and Jenna Corrigan scoring the first points of the double, 21-16, 21-17. This duo has a perfect record of 6 wins and 0 losses.
The Trojans fought back with three straight wins, knocking the fourth-seeded Bears into the repechage bracket to face sixth-seeded Arizona State.
Cal and the Sun Devils took turns winning throughout the match, with four of the five games going to three sets. The Bears' No. 3 pair, Gia Fisher and Maril Parry, lost first, but Sherman and Corrigan got revenge for ASU on court five.
Cuffo and Young-Gomez lost on Court 1, but No. 2 pair Donley and Peters dominated their opponents later in the day with 21-12, 21-13 sweeps. The Sun Devils defeated Booth and Dreibholz in three close sets, breaking the 2-2 tie and eliminating Cal from the Pac-12 Championship.
The National Collegiate Beach Volleyball Championship begins on Friday. By Saturday night, nine of the 17 teams had already automatically qualified. The rest are waiting to be selected Sunday, leaving the Bears with some questions after their loss to the Sun Devils.
“The loss to ASU hurt. We were a better team, (but) they had home court advantage,” Dreibholz said Saturday. “Obviously, the team is disappointed. It's disappointing to lose to them and it's a little uncertain whether we'll be able to qualify for the tournament.”
However, Dreibholz's fears did not last long. On Sunday morning's live NCAA selection show, Cal was seeded seventh out of the 17 teams it will face in the NCAA Championship. This will be the third consecutive year the Bears will be in the tournament.
As expectations build for next weekend, Dreibholz remains optimistic.
“We had a lot of really great wins at the beginning of the season, and I think we can get another great win,” Dreibholz said. “It’s going to be nerve-wracking to play us in the tournament.”
Cal travels to Gulf Shores, Alabama, on May 3 to face No. 10 seed Long Beach State, which has an overall record of 28-9. The winner of this first round matchup will face the winner of his UCLA vs. A&M-Corpus Christi, with both winners advancing to the semifinals.