Cal To Face No. 9 Seed Long Beach State In First Round
BERKELEY – The eighth-seeded California beach volleyball team is set for the 2023 NCAA Championship from May 5-7 in Gulf Shores, Alabama. The Golden Bears will face ninth-seeded Long Beach State in the first round on Friday at 8 a.m. PT.
Making their second-straight appearance in the tournament, the Bears enter the weekend following their highest Pac-12 Championship finish in school history. After sweeping Arizona State, Cal earned its record-breaking 27th win of the season, upsetting No. 3 USC 3-2 to move on to the semifinals. A rivalry match with No. 8 Stanford awaited the Bears there, and they did not waver in sweeping the Cardinal for the first time this season to advance to their first Pac-12 Championship final. The incredible run came to an end with a 3-0 loss to No. 1 UCLA in the last round.
Sophomore Sierra Caffo, junior Liz Waters-Leiga, and seniors Ainsley Radell and Ashley Delgado were named to the all-tournament team.
The Beach is coming off of a great run of its own, going undefeated through the Big West Championship to win its first conference title and earn an automatic bid. Long Beach State takes a five-match win streak into the NCAA Championship, but has only defeated one top-10 team this season, defeating No. 8 Hawai’I during its title run. Back in March, Cal took the sole regular-season matchup between the two teams 3-2.
Follow The Bears
Every match of the NCAA Championship will be broadcast live on the ESPN family of networks and live scoring will be available via CalBears.com. ESPNU will provide the coverage for Friday’s opening round with Saturday’s matches airing on ESPN2 and Sunday’s final airing on ESPN.
Tournament Time
This will be Cal’s second NCAA Championship appearance in program history after making the tournament for the first time last season. The Bears will be looking for their first tournament victory after falling 3-2 to No. 6 LSU in the first round last year. With several returners from the 2022 roster set to compete on Friday and a pair of transfers with NCAA Championship experience in Caffo (LSU) and Waters-Leiga (Florida State) playing in the top spot, the Bears begin the weekend with a much higher floor their second time around.
Rewriting the Record Book
The 10th Cal beach volleyball team will be one to remember with several records already broken on both the…
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