April 22, 2012
Box Score
BERKELEY -
Junior left-hander Justin Jones picked up his 22nd career win, senior center fielder Chad Bunting hit his team-leading eighth home run and Cal won its fourth-straight game with a 5-2 win over Utah Sunday (April 22) at Evans Diamond. The Golden Bears also earned their first Pac-12 series sweep of the year with the three wins over the Utes, topping Utah 9-4 Friday and 4-0 Saturday as well.
Cal, which improved to 23-15 overall and 6-8 in league play, next travels to Oregon for a three-game conference series, April 27-29, at PK Park in Eugene. Utah drops to 10-28 and 5-13 in Pac-12 play.
Jones, who hadn't earned a win since March 3 despite pitching well in his previous two outings, was stellar against the Utes, throwing 7.0 innings with three hits, one run, four walks and five strikeouts. Senior right-hander Joey Donofrio earned his second career saves, pitching the final two innings with two hits, one run, one walk and two strikeouts.
Jones' victory was the 22nd of his career, placing him alone in sixth on the Cal all-time career wins list.
Offensively, the Bears jumped on Utah with two runs in the bottom of the first inning when lead-off batter Vince Bruno starting the inning with a single up the middle off of Ute starter Mitch Watrous (2-2, 5.0 innings, seven hits, four runs) and scored on junior first baseman Mitch Delfino's two out double to left field. Delfino then scored on senior catcher Chadd Krist's double through the left center field gap. It was Krist's 59th career double, only two doubles away from tying school record-holder Jon Zuber's 61 doubles from 1989-1992.
Cal added two more runs in sixth inning when freshman shortstop Chris Paul had a two-out, two-run single through the left side of the infield to take a 4-0 lead.
Utah pushed across a run in the seventh inning on Tyler Relf's RBI ground out off of Jones, and scored a run in the eighth inning on Trey Nielsen's RBI double off of Donofrio to make the score, 4-2. But, Bunting's lead-off home run to left field in the eighth inning gave Cal its final 5-2 advantage.
Bruno, junior second baseman Tony Renda and Delfino finished with two hits apiece for the Bears.
For the Oregon series, KNEW 960 AM, part of the IMG Sports Network, and Cal's student radio, KALX 90.7 FM, will broadcast all three games of the series. Game times are 6 p.m. Friday, April 27; 2 p.m. Saturday, April 28 and 12 p.m. Sunday, April 29.
