BERKELEY, Calif. – Hits weren't hard to come by but those base runners proved harder to move across home plate for the Cal baseball team as the Bears dropped a 7-1 decision to visiting Oregon in the Pac-12 opener for both schools.
 
Cal (8-8, 0-1 Pac-12) established early that it would be able to get the bat on the ball against a pitcher in David Peterson who came to Berkeley fresh off back to back National Player of the Week awards. Three singles in the first inning gave the Bears life but no runs as an out at home ended the frame without anyone coming around to score.
 
Oregon (12-4, 1-0) did its first damage in the third inning, scoring on a sacrifice fly by Jake Bennett and a bad-hop single by Matthew Dyer that plated two more. The Ducks pushed two runs across in the fifth and held a 5-0 lead midway through the game.
 
The Bears did eventually get their chance to make things interesting. Singles by Tyrus Greene and Max Flower and a walk by Ripken Reyes loaded the bases with nobody out but, after a fielder's choice plated the first run, Oregon managed to get off the hook with just the one run allowed as closer Kenyon Yovan finished the inning with a strikeout to strand a pair of Cal runners.
 
"We put some hits on the board there and I felt like the game was closer than maybe our guys thought it was," Cal head coach David Esquer said. "All of a sudden you look up and it's bases loaded, nobody out in the eighth and who knows? We get a hit or a big swing of the bat and you've got trouble. To have 10 hits in the first five innings off of Peterson, you knew he was going to be out of the game in one or two more innings. He was at like 80 pitches through four or five so we're going to get to that bullpen a little bit and we're getting some hits, we're just not finishing the inning and that was kind of the story of the game. We just didn't finish any innings."
 
Cal finished the evening with 13 hits, led by a 3-for-4 evening from Greene. Jack Wolger pitched a solid three innings out of the bullpen, allowing two runs in relief of starter Tanner Dodson, who allowed five runs in 5 1/3 innings pitched.
 
The Bears and Ducks return to Evans Diamond on Saturday for a 6:05 p.m. first pitch in the second game of three. The series concludes Sunday at 1:05 p.m.