Counting Down Cal's Top-50 Transfer Athletes: No. 23 Julia Vander Hoeven

We rank the mid-career arrivals in Berkeley who have had the greatest impact on the Golden Bears

Julia Vander Hoeven | Photo courtesy of Cal Athletics

The transfer portal era in college athletics seems like it’s been with us forever. Likewise, most fans can recall less turbulent times when transfers happened, they simply didn’t look like a stampede to the 1849 California Gold Rush.

We thought it was time to rank the best transfers Cal teams have attracted, most of them in recent seasons but also including a few OGs from yesteryear. 

We limited our ranking to transfers from four-year colleges.

Here is the next athlete in our countdown: 

23. Julia Vander Hoeven

Sport: Rowing 

Arrival year at Cal: 2015-16

Previous school: Syracuse (Spent one season with the Orange, winning  ACC Rookie of the Year as a freshman in 2014-15). 

Contributions at Cal: 

— A 5-foot-10 native of Ontario, Canada, who also played hockey and swam in high school, Vander Hoeven made an immediate contribution as a sophomore at Berkeley. Rowing in the Varsity 8+ boat, she won a gold at the Pac-12 meet then helped the Bears to a runner-up finish in the event at the NCAA championships, which factored into Cal’s overall team championship.

— As a junior, Vander Hoeven split her time between the Second Varsity 8+ and the Varsity 8+ boats. She competed with the latter unit while finishing second at the Pac-12 meet and third at the NCAAs, where the Bears finished second in the team competition.

— Vander Hoeven used the summer of 2017 to represent her native Canada at the U23 World championships, winning gold in the eight.

— In 2018, Vander Hoeven earned a silver medal while in the 7-seat of the Second Varsity 8+ boat at the NCAA meet, helping propel the Bears to the team title. Previous to that she helped the Varsity 8 boat to a bronze medal at the Pac-12 championships.

Standout performance: Take your pick among significant contributions by Vander Hoeven over three seasons, but she signaled what she could bring to the program with her debut performance as a sophomore in 2016, when the Bears won the NCAA team championship.

Impact on her team: Collegiate rowing is the ultimate team sport but Vander Hoeven certainly did her part as the Bears won two national team championships and finished second once over her three seasons with the program. 

Previously on our list: 

No. 24: Dai Dai Ames

No. 25: Julie Leontini

No. 26. Recee' Caldwell

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