2024 Fall Report: California (From D1 Softball)
Top Stories Jenni Carlson - October 9, 2024
Chelsea Spencer still thinks about Cal's season-ending loss to Southern Illinois.
Frankly, she isn't sure when she'll stop ruminating on it.
"The Southern Illinois loss is something that's going to haunt me for a while," the Bears coach said. "As a head coach, I'm like, 'What can I do to get better?'"
Spencer dedicated her offseason to seeking answers that might help Cal turn a massively disappointing loss into a program-defining moment.
The Bears went 37-19 last season, notching several big wins during the regular season against Georgia, Louisiana, Virginia Tech and Oregon. They made the NCAA Tournament for the second consecutive year.
But Cal's NCAA run ended in the Baton Rouge Regional when it lost to Southern Illinois, 3-2, an elimination game.
Cal committed four errors in the game and allowed two unearned runs. In addition, after scoring two quick runs in the first inning, the Bears only scratched out three hits the rest of the game.
Spencer believes it came down to how the Bears handled pressure.
"Understanding what makes people feel pressure and how to relieve that pressure," the fifth-year head coach said, "is my biggest goal this year to get these student-athletes to have peak performance."
Spencer spent the summer talking to coaches around the softball world, picking their brains about how their teams handle pressure. That included Oklahoma coach Patty Gasso, whose Sooners carried the mantle of "defending champs" for several years but managed to win an unprecedented four consecutive national titles.
Spencer also read. A lot.
She says she dove into at least half a dozen books after the Southern Illinois loss, including "The Mastery of Love," "The Emotionally Strong Leader" and "The Culture Code."
"The road to success is paved with mistakes well-handled," Spencer said, reciting something she took from "The Culture Code." "That's what I'm really interested in doing, is creating an atmosphere of making mistakes, fixing them and moving on."
NewcomersCal hasn't dipped much into the transfer portal, and this season, the Bears didn't dip at all.
They have seven newcomers, six freshmen and one junior college transfer, and while there aren't a ton of open spots only two full-time position players were among the six players lost to graduation the newbies should add some depth.
Six of the seven have experience playing in the field.
"We're just repping people at every position," Spencer said. "We know that defense and pitching wins championships. That's where we lost last year in the end, and they understand that."
PitchingSpencer wanted to hire fellow Cal alum Jen Deering to be the Bears' pitching coach a few years ago.
But Spencer didn't think Deering was quite ready.
"I knew she needed to get out a little bit and get her feet wet with some pitchers at Santa Clara," Spencer said, referencing where Deering has been an assistant since 2019. "I wanted to see her development with them."
When Danielle O'Toole-Trejo left this summer to become the pitching coach at Stanford, Spencer knew the time was right to hire Deering.
"I think she might love this university more than I do," Spencer said. "It's good because I know that I'll have longevity with her. She's a proud Bear. She wants to be here, and I need a staff that's going to stay together for a while."
Deering takes over a staff that lost Haylei Archer to graduation and Randi Roelling to the transfer portal. Roelling threw 133 innings last season while Archer threw 123. No one else on the staff threw more than 37.
Still, Spencer believes the four returning arms Ashanti McDade, Anna Reimers, Ryann Orange and Annabel Teperson will lead the Bears' efforts in the circle.
"Those four will be our horses," Spencer said. "I believe in a staff nowadays. It's not going to be starters for the whole game."
"They're going to get us through the year."
OffenseThe Bears had five players hit better than .300 last season and four are back.
Now, the one who is gone was Cal's leading hitter: Tatum Anzaldo, part of last season's graduating class, hit .406 and led the team with 73 hits. Still, Acacia Anders, Elon Butler, Mika Lee and Tianna Bell give the Bears a strong offensive nucleus.
Anders, whose .379 batting average ranked second only to Anzaldo on the team, led Cal with 19 doubles while Butler, who hit .351, led the team with 17 homers and 44 runs batted in.
"Elon Butler, oh my God, she's so fit right now," Spencer said. "Tianna Bell is just killing it. … That Southern Illinois loss put my veterans in a mindset of, that was a poor way to lose a game. And I don't think they stopped training."
DefenseThe way Cal's season ended last spring, defense will be an ongoing focus.
And not just the nuts and bolts of it.
"We're diving super hard into mental performance," Spencer said, adding that the team regularly meets with mental performance consultant Samantha Gilmore.
"Just really working on being clear on where we are and where we want to go. It's really important to connect the dots there for athletes and understanding that it might not be what you want to hear right now, where we are, but this is where we are and this is where we want to go."
ExpectationsDuring Spencer's four-year career at Cal, she played for the national championship three times and won it once, in 2002.
The Bears haven't reached the Women's College World Series since Spencer returned to Berkeley as the head coach, but last season, they made the NCAA Tournament in back-to-back seasons for the first time since 2018.
It was a step in the right direction, but Spencer wants more.
"Championship mindset, right?" she said. "I'm not interested in just being average."
