April 12, 2002

BERKELEY, CA - The Cal baseball team lost to visiting Arizona, 8-4, Friday at Evans Diamond. The Bears fall to 22-17 and 5-5 in the conference. Arizona improves to 23-14 and 4-6 in the Pac-10.

Cal struggled pretty much the entire game, falling behind 3-0 and only getting one hit through the first five innings. The Wildcats scored three runs off of Bear starter Trevor Hutchinson (7-4, eight hits, three runs, two walks, four strikeouts), a run off of reliever Travis Talbott in the eighth inning and four unearned runs off of reliever Jesse Ingram in the top of the ninth inning.

However, Cal had a golden opportunity to get back into the game after scoring two runs in the seventh inning on back-to-back RBI doubles by junior catcher John Baker and freshman third baseman David Nicholson to make the score 4-2. In the bottom of the eighth inning, the Bears had the bases loaded with no outs against Arizona reliever Wes Zlotoff. Zlotoff was able to get David Weiner to pop-up to first base, before center fielder Brian Anderson came in to pitch to Cal's top hitter, Conor Jackson. With a full count, Anderson almost hit Jackson, and Jackson accidentally dribble to ball down the first base line for a pitcher to catcher to first double play to end the inning.

Down 8-2 going into the bottom of the ninth, the Bears got within 8-4 on a two-run double by Brian Horwitz.

Arizona's winning pitcher was starter Sean Rierson (6-2, 7.0 innings, five hits, two runs, no walks, three strikeouts) and Anderson picked up his third save of the season (1.7 innings, four hits, two runs, two strikeouts).

Anderson, John Hardy, Ken Riley and Justyn St. Clair had two hits apiece for the Wildcats, whose 13 hits on the day were all singles. Ben Conley, Carson White, Baker, Nicholson and Jeff Dragicevich had two hits apiece for the Bears.

Cal will face Arizona in the second game of the three-game conference series Saturday, Apr. 13 at 1 p.m. at Evans Diamond.

Home Runs:

Arizona: None.

Cal: None.