Softball: ACC Play

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CalFanatic
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9:22p, 3/5/26
Tomorrow starts our first "home" series against Duke.

Surprised to see the Blue Devils slip to #25 in the rankings (12-9 record).

The team can hit but much like us, pitching is the struggle. Team ERA is 4.64.

https://goduke.com/sports/softball/stats/2026
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Ccajon2
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8:20a, 3/6/26
I probably missed it but our top Frosh recruit Nina Payton Johnson hasn't played at all this year. We could have used her hitting and I hope her injury wasn't too serious.

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smh
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10:17a, 3/6/26
softball? well shure, as always # gobears
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Schroeder71
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1:24p, 3/6/26
It appears as if all of Cal's *home* ACC games will not be data streamed.
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CalFanatic
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1:38p, 3/6/26
I see it on the schedule here: https://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=654707

From a logistical standpoint, why doesn't Duke stay and play next weekend against Stanford to get both series out of the way? Similar to how we play Notre Dame/Louisville back to back weekends on the road? ACC travel is a disaster.
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kc1121
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1:54p, 3/6/26
Waiters gets the call for ACC opener
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kc1121
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2:08p, 3/6/26
is there no TV today? Can't find it on espn/espn+ app
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CalFanatic
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In reply to kc1121 • 2:27p, 3/6/26
kc1121 said:
is there no TV today? Can't find it on espn/espn+ app

I saw the ACC Network logo but I can't find it on the ESPN+ app. So I assume there's no tv?

1-0 Duke, B2
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kc1121
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In reply to CalFanatic • 2:32p, 3/6/26
CalFanatic said:
kc1121 said:
is there no TV today? Can't find it on espn/espn+ app

I saw the ACC Network logo but I can't find it on the ESPN+ app. So I assume there's no tv?

1-0 Duke, B2

Yeah, thats what had me searching and I thought they said the Sac and West Valley games would be aired. The Duke schedule doesn't show a TV link

The I thought maybe that ACC logo on the schedule was to point out the conference games,
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CalFanatic
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3:02p, 3/6/26
Judging by the live stats, our defense has bailed out the pitching on two occasions with two clutch double plays. Nada on offense. 3-0 heading into B4.

About to board a flight to Paris, so good luck to the Bears the rest of the week. Roll on!
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Shocky1
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6:38p, 3/6/26
duke 12
cal 0

fire jennifer simon-o'neil#
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Schroeder71
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10:46a, 3/7/26
Cal was no hit yesterday. However, the pitching and defense are the problems. In the fourth inning yesterday. Bears brought in Taylor Peacock to hopefully get ground balls. She succeeded with eight balls that never left the infield. It's hard to evaluate the exact problem when one follows live stats. However, there were three infield singles and two errors that helped the Blue Devils score four runs. There were multiple fielder's choices to shortstop where no outs were recorded. There was an error on an outfielder which means to me that the ball was dropped. This season there has been at least four of those that I can remember. Two different pitchers also hit batters with the bases loaded that forced in runs, etc.

To be honest, I can hardly remember fielder's choices that failed to record outs in past seasons. In the BYU loss, three fielder's choices to SS prolonged big innings and helped the Cougars tally seven runs. These must be caused by either tremendous speed of the opponent, poor judgement by the Cal infielder or that the player that they threw the ball to was unprepared and unable to complete the play.

Since that I've never witnessed an epidemic of this before, I have lost interest in spending hours following live stats. I will watch a game that is online so that I can see actually what is transpiring. I'm surprised that the coaching staff cannot teach the infielders how to minimize these difficulties.

If someone has actually seen these miscues perhaps, they can explain how this can be happening. GO BEARS!
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wvitbear
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11:21a, 3/7/26
You should attend a gme when it is your neck of the woods and report back.
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kc1121
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3:50p, 3/7/26
Nice outing vs Duke by McGowan today
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CalFanatic
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1:03p, 3/8/26
Darn, looks like we were six outs away from the upset yesterday. Good outing from McGowan.

We've got to find more offense to help our young staff. That's what I'm most surprised about,,,I knew our pitching would struggle, but the offense has struggled quite a bit more than I would've expected.

Good luck to the Bears from Paris (I won't get tired of saying that these next few weeks).
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CalFanatic
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1:06p, 3/8/26
FYI- Cal and Duke are tied 2-2 heading into the 5th.

Freshman Everett with her second homerun of the season. Go Bears!
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kc1121
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In reply to CalFanatic • 1:07p, 3/8/26
CalFanatic said:
FYI- Cal and Duke are tied 2-2 heading into the 5th.

Freshman Everett with her second homerun of the season. Go Bears!

Peacock is giving it up again...

2 nice pitching performances from McGowan though.. keep it up kid!
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CalFanatic
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In reply to kc1121 • 1:10p, 3/8/26
kc1121 said:
CalFanatic said:
FYI- Cal and Duke are tied 2-2 heading into the 5th.

Freshman Everett with her second homerun of the season. Go Bears!

Peacock is giving it up again...

2 nice pitching performances from McGowan though.. keep it up kid!


Seems like an incredibly poor decision to make that pitching change.... I don't understand. 4-2 Duke now.
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kc1121
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In reply to CalFanatic • 1:13p, 3/8/26
CalFanatic said:
kc1121 said:
CalFanatic said:
FYI- Cal and Duke are tied 2-2 heading into the 5th.

Freshman Everett with her second homerun of the season. Go Bears!

Peacock is giving it up again...

2 nice pitching performances from McGowan though.. keep it up kid!


Seems like an incredibly poor decision to make that pitching change.... I don't understand. 4-2 Duke now.

Yeah only at 44 pitches too, I didn't check to see how many she threw yesterday.

But how about Waiters or Gerhard or anyone before Peacock..
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CalFanatic
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In reply to kc1121 • 1:22p, 3/8/26
kc1121 said:
CalFanatic said:
kc1121 said:
CalFanatic said:
FYI- Cal and Duke are tied 2-2 heading into the 5th.

Freshman Everett with her second homerun of the season. Go Bears!

Peacock is giving it up again...

2 nice pitching performances from McGowan though.. keep it up kid!


Seems like an incredibly poor decision to make that pitching change.... I don't understand. 4-2 Duke now.

Yeah only at 44 pitches too, I didn't check to see how many she threw yesterday.

But how about Waiters or Gerhard or anyone before Peacock..


Togia now on the mound. Reminds me of when we relied on Vanessa Alvarez to pitch after Jolene Henderson went down with her ACL injury back in 2013...a good youth pitcher who wasn't really meant to see action in the circle collegiately.
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CalFanatic
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1:32p, 3/8/26
For some reason, Peacock re-enters after a 123 inning from Togia, and Duke immediately busts it open.

Makes no sense and, again, seems like an incredibly poor coaching decision. Oh well. Signing off for the night. Go Bears!
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kc1121
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In reply to CalFanatic • 1:32p, 3/8/26
CalFanatic said:
kc1121 said:
CalFanatic said:
kc1121 said:
CalFanatic said:
FYI- Cal and Duke are tied 2-2 heading into the 5th.

Freshman Everett with her second homerun of the season. Go Bears!

Peacock is giving it up again...

2 nice pitching performances from McGowan though.. keep it up kid!


Seems like an incredibly poor decision to make that pitching change.... I don't understand. 4-2 Duke now.

Yeah only at 44 pitches too, I didn't check to see how many she threw yesterday.

But how about Waiters or Gerhard or anyone before Peacock..


Togia now on the mound. Reminds me of when we relied on Vanessa Alvarez to pitch after Jolene Henderson went down with her ACL injury back in 2013...a good youth pitcher who wasn't really meant to see action in the circle collegiately.

Yeah.. give her a shot, nothing to lose and a chance to develop. IIRC, she didn't pitch at all in JC

And then it looks like Peacock is back in in the 7th..
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kc1121
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7:12a, 3/10/26
Today's (3/10) non conference matchup vs UoP appears to be on espn+ 4pm PST
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Callie Wake
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7:26a, 3/10/26
I was at Saturday & Sunday's games (it's nice not having to commute 2 hours to see Cal softball for once lol)

The funny thing about Togia is she's never pitched at the collegiate level before this year, however she has the lowest ERA on the team and it's not even close. I get she only has like, 3-5 innings of work so it's too small sample size to get an accurate ERA but... it's hard to see all our other pitchers struggle to string together more than 2 scoreless innings, and then Togia gets shoved out there as the "we're out of pitchers" choice and she sits down the next 3 no problem. Unfortunately our bullpen is extremely limited.

It doesn't help that we have once again returned to being unable to score more than 2 runs (the folks near me were a grumblin' about that after Sunday's loss). For the record, in 10 out of 25 games, Cal has scored 2 or less. Only once have they gotten a win that way (1-0 against SJSU, our first win of the year)

On a lighter note, on top of being Cal's ERA leader, Togia is also Cal's all-around hitting leader, at the top (or near to it) in just about every metric: batting avg, hits, OPS, doubles, home runs, etc. Quite frankly she's an insanely good gem pick up by (former) Coach Spencer.

Anyway, on to Pacific today (not going, I have a day job) and then UNC this weekend in Saratoga (will likely be there).
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CalFanatic
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9:14a, 3/10/26
Great update, thanks Callie. At this point, we really have nothing to lose by giving her more innings. She was good enough to pitch for the Corona Angels in travel ball, and we Cal fans know that program has produced some of the best players to come through Berkeley. It couldn't hurt.

I'm also curious what Singleton is thinking in terms of offseason portal moves. You've got the #1 player in the Bay Area coming in, which should provide some pitching relief, plus two arms arriving in 2027. It almost feels like the move is to grab a really solid grad transfer or senior for a season to bridge the gap before those two arrive.

The new stadium should also be a huge selling point for someone looking to play their final season. I just don't see how bringing in one arm fixes the pitching issue... you won't have success until this is fixed.
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smh
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In reply to Callie Wake • 10:27a, 3/10/26
thanks for the report.
ot (sorry) my cousin's name was Callie, a teacher (wish she was still with us, sniff)
# time flies / eat dessert first
sighned, not dead yet # funk trunk; i.c.e. too
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Callie Wake
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In reply to CalFanatic • 10:34a, 3/10/26
I don't disagree. As my coach in little league always ran things, if you're good at something, use it. That's how I ended up playing catcher for years. But I suspect her pitch count limit is approximately 1-2 innings per day max. That's just my baseless intuition, but maybe she's got more juice in there. I said to a friend if she is actually as good at pitching as her play so far suggests, and if she has the arm for 3 innings, she would be an extremely reliable closer.

I spoke with Singleton for an article I wrote for Write for California at the beginning of the season. Brilliant head coach imo, the man's hardwired for this. He's got a vision and I've spent all my metaphorical money buying up stock in the future he is aiming for. Here are my thoughts: if I'm Singleton, I'm going to the portal with a shopping list that says "good pitchers" at the top. I have a feeling there will be a lot of turnover again after this year, which makes sense given the team's current struggles. It's gonna take multiple pitchers, plus good development on our current freshman. But brace yourself all the same. On the plus side, Steve is already recruiting freshmen heavily and wants to build a team from the ground up.

As for his pitch to recruits, the new stadium is a big part of it. A state of the art brand new facility is a great draw for players. Additionally, Cal being a storied program for decades is a big plus; and it's not valued enough in other sports, but for the smaller non-rev sports, a degree from Berkeley is still worth something. At least one transfer player this year I've talked to has told me Cal was always one of her top choices ever since she was a kid because of our history in softball and our academics. Finally, Singleton's name as a Nat'l Championship coach has a TON of weight with players. It's like how Tosh has a big name in the football recruiting landscape. So does Steve.
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kc1121
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In reply to kc1121 • 4:01p, 3/10/26
kc1121 said:
Today's (3/10) non conference matchup vs UoP appears to be on espn+ 4pm PST

Gerhard with the start
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Callie Wake
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4:05p, 3/10/26
Good news chat: Counts with the first hit of the game. Yippee!
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Igber226
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In reply to Schroeder71 • 4:06p, 3/10/26
I haven't watched them live since the first games at Stanford but to my eyes, the infield/catcher take a split second longer to get to/get rid of the ball than the top teams. That can be worked on.

Haven't figure out what's with the pitching though.
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kc1121
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4:30p, 3/10/26
some surprise pop from Maddie Rey - HR 1-1

Nice pitching from Gerhard. 5 innings of 1-run ball, Waiters in for relief, Cal leading 6-1 b6

Gerhard back in in b7 after Waiters gives up 2 run HR. Cal up 6-4
Gerhard gives up a HR to 1st batter she faces . 6-5, Gerhard walks next batter,
Mashoud in to pitch. Mashoud gets the save.

Cal wins 6-5 . HRs from Rey and Robinson today
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Callie Wake
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In reply to kc1121 • 6:43p, 3/10/26
kc1121 said:
some surprise pop from Maddie Rey - HR 1-1

Nice pitching from Gerhard. 5 innings of 1-run ball, Waiters in for relief, Cal leading 6-1 b6

Gerhard back in in b7 after Waiters gives up 2 run HR. Cal up 6-4
Gerhard gives up a HR to 1st batter she faces . 6-5, Gerhard walks next batter,
Mashoud in to pitch. Mashoud gets the save.

Cal wins 6-5 . HRs from Rey and Robinson today

I am still scratching my head on the decision to put Layna back in. She looked gassed the moment she got back in the circle. But a win is a win I guess, nice to be on the left side of the of the W/L record again. And big ups to Kiki for getting her second save of the year.
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kc1121
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In reply to Callie Wake • 6:50p, 3/10/26
Yea, I've never been a big fan of the pitcher re-entry, but I'll take the W. Mashoud looked good, maybe she should get some more chances. Big props to Gator for the stop on the ball headed up the middle and the glove flip to 2nd for the force.

Looking forward to your reports on the games vs UNC if you make it. Looks like no TV for the West Valley games.
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Callie Wake
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In reply to kc1121 • 7:32p, 3/10/26
Much like every pitcher in our bullpen, when Mashhoud is on, she is ON. But when she's not, you're in for a long day. Loved seeing Robinson, Everett, Togia, and Counts lighting up the field with that rally in the 4th. Felt good to see our bats putting things into play again.

Working on my Duke recap right now, I'll be attending at least one game in every home series. I am not looking forward to driving to Saratoga from Sacramento lol.
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kc1121
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In reply to Callie Wake • 8:05p, 3/10/26
Yeah, looked like they were going to breeze to a victory until that b7.

Wow.. that's gonna be a nasty drive for a game, esp getting back to Sac on a weekend evening
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