California Golden Bears women's volleyball

In 2007, Cal reached the final four for the first time in school history before falling to eventual national champion Penn State in the semifinals. Not only did they reach the final four, in their run they were able to defeat defending champion and #2 seed Nebraska, who were the favorites to repeat as champions, in the regional final round, in a sweep (3-0).

In that same year, Senior outside hitter Angie Pressey, the daughter of NBA player Paul Pressey, garnered AVCA First Team All-American honors and was the only Cal player in history to be named to the Pac-10 All-Conference team all four years. Hana Cutura was named the 2007 regional MVP for her helping Cal reach the final four.

In 2008 and 2009, the Bears got back to the NCAA tournament, but failed to reach their 2007 success due to 3-0 losses to Penn State in the Elite Eight.

Cal completed its most successful season in 2010, as they won the Pac-10 title for the first time in school history and advanced to the 2010 NCAA Championship final, where they fell to Penn State. Senior setter Carli Lloyd was named the 2010 AVCA National Player of the Year and then head coach Rich Feller was named the National Coach of the Year.

The Bears failed to replicate their 2010 success the following year despite going 27-7 during the regular season. They made the NCAA tournament, but lost to the North Carolina Tar Heels in the first round, ending their season.

2012 was a similar season for the Bears, as their season ended with yet another first round loss in the tournament to North Carolina. They finally were able to make it past the first round of the tournament vs the Heels the following season, but were swept by the Wisconsin Badgers.

From 2014 to 2016, the Bears struggled, finishing dead last in the Pac-12 two of those years despite having strong players like Janelle Jordan and Lara Vukasovic. Despite the additions of star freshmen Maddie Haynes, Kat Knop, and Bailee Huizenga for the 2016 season, the struggles continued. After a disappointing 2016 season, which saw the Bears going 9–21 on the year, Feller announced his retirement, and his assistant Matt McShane took over as head coach.

McShane’s first season as head coach did not go well, even with the addition of star recruits in outside hitter Mima Mirkovic, middle blockers Preslie Anderson and Lauren Forte, and transfer libero Emma Smith. While the former two and star senior outside hitter Christine Alftin did well, the team struggled with injuries to many of their star players, including Alftin and Smith, which left them out of the NCAA tournament for a third straight year. McShane was terminated towards the end of the season, forcing associate head coach Jennifer Dorr to take the helm, which she did through the 2018 season.

Dorr had a goal to return to the NCAA tournament and gain the Bears’ reputation as a good team back. Mirkovic had an outstanding season, with 15 double-doubles on the year and 3.46 kills/set, the most on the team, along with 405 kills. Coach Dorr implored a 6-2 offense, with sophomore Isabel Potter and freshman Jade Blevins at setter, while making Smith their primary libero. Despite the success of Mirkovic and their new freshmen, notably Blevins, libero Gabby Bellizzi, and middle blocker Bella Bergmark, the Bears missed the tournament for a fourth straight year despite finishing only one game below .500.

After signing two recruits: Turkish outside hitter Deniz Milli and Villa Park High School opposite Sydney Lilomaiava that November, Dorr was left searching for a job as the Bears went on looking for a permanent coach. Dorr was not considered to take over the job, as Cal athletic director Jim Knowlton had other plans for their situation in order to help them return to national prominence.

On December 20th, 2018, Knowlton announced that Cal had hired Sam Crosson as the new head coach of the program.[3] Crosson already had connections to the program, as he was an assistant under Feller for the 2010 and ‘11 seasons before spending 7 years as the head coach of Cal Poly. He kept Dorr on as his associate, and the Bears improved drastically. They went 10-0 in non conference play before losing to Stanford in Haas, then went on to win the next 7 games to improve to 17-1, with their biggest win coming against then-18th ranked Utah Utes. Mirkovic put down 18 kills and scored the game winning kill in that game. In the game against Colorado two days later, she had a career-high 19 kills, including another game-winner. It led to her receiving Cal’s second PAC 12 offensive player of the Week honor. [4] She was awarded the AVCA National Player of the Week honor that same week, the first player to earn the award since Carli Lloyd in 2010 and the fourth player overall, joining Lloyd (‘08 and ‘10), Mia Jerkov (‘02), and Cutura (‘09), cementing herself as one of Cal’s legends. [5] After losses to UCLA and USC in LA and Oregon at home, the Bears won three more games, reaching their first 20-win season since 2013, which made it very likely that they would come back to the NCAA tournament.

Unfortunately, during the first set of the team’s penultimate home game against UCLA, Mirkovic took a shot to the head off a kill from UCLA’s outside hitter Jenny Mosser, but remained in the game. Towards the end of the first set, while going up for a kill, she went down with an ankle injury, which led her to miss four games. The Bears lost both the UCLA game 3-0 and their Senior Day game against USC 3-1 despite Haynes’ 20 kills in the latter game, and couldn't get the season sweep of Colorado and Utah on the road in 3-1 losses.

Despite Mirkovic’s return against Washington, the Bears lost both that game and the game against Stanford, ending their season 20-10 overall, 10–10 in conference. Because only the top six Pac-12 teams make NCAA’s, the Bears missed it for a fifth straight year, just one spot shy of sixth place. Mirkovic finished with 13 double-doubles, the eighth most in the Pac-12, along with 325 kills (.242 hitting and 3.28 kills/set), 20 aces, and 289 digs, putting her six kills shy of 1000, and was named to the AVCA Pacific North All-Region team. Along with Anderson and Forte, she was also named to the All-Pac 12 team, while Haynes received an honorable mention.

The loss of Haynes, Huizenga, Smith, and Rennie were tough for Cal, but they signed six freshmen and Arizona transfer Katie Smoot to the roster during the off-season that was cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic. After Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott announced the postponement of all fall sports due to the pandemic, both Anderson and Forte announced via social media that they were a semester away from graduating and were transferring to Baylor and Florida, respectively for next season. The announcements came as a big blow for Cal, as they were left with only two middles whom were inexperienced, putting pressure on Mirkovic and Potter to stay with the team. In November 2020, Scott announced that the 2020 PAC-12 volleyball season would be played in spring 2021, on a 22-game conference only schedule. Though Cal appeared to be the team that would improve from last season and make the NCAA tournament, Crosson announced that Potter was staying, but also stated that Mirkovic and Smoot, who play both indoor and beach volleyball, were playing beach. In turn, it forced newly signed freshman Kat Pantovic and the other newcomers to fill the holes left by their departure and the departure of Anderson and Forte at the end of last season. During the first series vs UCLA, Pantovic, Lilomaiava, and middle blocker Lydia Grote gave their all for the team, but it was all for naught as Cal lost the first game of the series 3-1 and were swept in the second, which was very reminiscent of last season.