Cal Sports Report

Cal Begins Second Softball Weekend After Promising Start

Bears head to Long Beach State after hitting 10 homers in 5-1 start

Jake Curtis

Cal begins its second weekend of softball action on Friday in Long Beach, Calif., after showing off its power while going 5-1 last weekend in Los Angeles.

The Bears hit 10 home runs while beating San Diego twice and Utah State and Loyola Marymount once each while splitting two games with Cal State-Fullerton. Freshman Tiana Bell, who has taken over the cleanup spot in the batting order, led the team with three homers and nine RBIs in those six games.

Cal, which went 28-27-1 overall and 8-16 in the Pac-12 last season, is picked to finish seventh in the nine-team conference in the preseason conference poll. The Bears used to be a regular participant in the NCAA playoffs, but they have not made it to the postseason since 2018. Chelsea Spencer is in her third season as the Bears head coach.

softball picks

The Bears will get a better read on their season this weekend when they face Louisiana-Monroe, UC Davis and Long Beach State in five games, all against unranked teams.

Two Cal players were named to the 20-player preseason all-Pac-12 team – infielder Tatum Anzaldo and catcher Makena Smith. Smith is hitting .412 with one home run through six games this season after batting .412 with 13 homers as season ago. Anzaldo is hitting .353 through six games this season after hitting .383 a year ago.

However, the top Cal hitter in the first weekend was surprising junior Sophie Medellin. She hit just .218 with two homers in 2022, but she has already matched last year’s home run total with two long balls in the first weekend while hitting .417. She has had only 14 plate appearances so far this season, so we’ll see whether she can keep up the pace.

Cal’s top returning pitcher is Sona Halajian, who was 18-10 with a 3.87 ERA last season. But she got off to a rough start this year, allowing 12 earned runs in 9 2/3 innings pitched.

On the other hand, Haylei Archer pitched well in the opening weekend, going 2-0 with a save without giving up an earned run in the 10 2/3 innings she pitched. She was 6-12 with a 4.62 ERA a year ago.

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Cover photo by Peter Fukumae

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Jake Curtis
JAKE CURTIS

Jake Curtis worked in the San Francisco Chronicle sports department for 27 years, covering virtually every sport, including numerous Final Fours, several college football national championship games, an NBA Finals, world championship boxing matches and a World Cup. He was a Cal beat writer for many of those years, and won awards for his feature stories.

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