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December 9, 2005
Hello All Fans, Family and Friends, This will be my last post of this season and if you are getting this for the first time, I hope you don't mind being included. Cal volleyball had quite a season. Many of our pre-season goals were reached and a few were not. For the fourth straight year (a Cal record) we made it into the NCAA tournament. Every year we have played in the tournament, we have advanced to the second round, as we did this year. We were sent about as far away from home as any team in the country and the odds were against us beating the home town team that was ranked above Cal. I thought the team played hard throughout the match, but we came up short of reaching the Sweet Sixteen this year. This makes our returning players even more committed to going farther into the tournament next year. There were many highlights in the 2005 season. Cal broke a 47 match losing streak to UCLA by sweeping them at home early in the season. We also beat USC that same weekend recording the programs first ever sweep of both LA schools. We had tough losses against Washington, five game matches and two five game wins over Arizona and Santa Clara. Five of our athletes were named to the Pac10 All-Academic Team. I am proud to say that seniors Alexis Kollias, and Alicia Powers, juniors Sam Carter and Jillian Davis and sophomore Angie Pressey were all honored. In addition, six were named to the Pac-10 All-Conference Team. Angie Pressey was named first team and Alicia, Sam, Jillian and Jenna Brown were honorable mention. Morgan Beck was named to the Pac-10 All-Freshman Team. The 2005 season also marked the end of the impressive careers of Cal seniors Jenna Brown Alexis Kollias and Alicia Powers. The three seniors helped the Bears qualify for the NCAA Tournament a school-record four-straight years. Cal also won opening-round matches in each of those years, including advancing to the Round of 16 in 2003. Brown finished her career with 1,113 kills and 1,151 digs, becoming only the fifth player in Cal history to record over 1,000 kills and 1,000 digs. Powers finished her college career with 431 career blocks, third on the Bears all-time list. Kollias had a career-high 31 digs in last year's NCAA second-round versus Saint Mary's. We are taking a little break right now, but already planning for next year and this spring. The players are about to start on finals to finish up this semester and then they get about a month at home. When we return in January, we will start individual practices and conditioning right away. A few weeks before spring break, we will get back into our team practices and tournaments. On January 19th, we will have our annual awards banquet. I will be sending you updates as we get into spring practices, but for now, its break time. Rich Feller Head Coach - Cal Volleyball |
