BERKELEY – California volleyball (7-3) closed out non-conference play on Saturday afternoon with a five-set thriller against UC Davis (5-5), earning the 3-2 win due in no small part to a slew of impressive performances from the Bears.
Junior Leah Schmidt exploded for a career-high 24 kills on the day, more than any single-game high ever posted by any of her teammates. Classmate Tara DeSa also reached a career-high 28 digs, while fellow juniors Lydia Grote and Sam Taumoepeau each posted 13 kills as well as 13 and 10 digs, respectively.
Sophomore Annalea Maeder reached two milestones on her way to 51 assists (and 14 digs) – she now has over 1000 career assists (now 1026) and over 300 (327) on the season.
Cal started off the first set with a kill from Grote and an early 5-0 run, which featured a pair of kills and a pair of blocks from star freshman Mikayla Hayden. The Aggies responded with their own 5-0 run to come within a single point of the Bears, but the home team responded by taking advantage of several UC Davis errors for yet another 5-0 run. It was Maeder who slammed down the winning kill after a strong offensive series, putting the Bears up 1-0 (25-20).
Once again, Cal kicked off the second set with a solid scoring run, marked by several solid plays from Schmidt and Hayden to go up by a margin of 8-2. The two teams exchanged points for several minutes, with a rowdy Aggies squad refusing to trail by too much. Finally, freshman Sophie Scott capped off a 4-0 scoring run with the…
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