BERKELEY – After Gonzaga forged ahead to win the resumption of Saturday's suspended game, the Cal baseball team showed its resolve and fought to earn a series split, pounding out 13 hits en route to a 9-5 victory in the finale of a long and often wet four-game series at Evans Diamond.
Cal ends the weekend with a 4-7 record and that's the mark the Bears will take into action next weekend when they head to Malibu for a three-game series against perennial West Coast Conference title contender Pepperdine. Play begins Friday at 2 p.m. with Saturday and Sunday games set for a 1 p.m. first pitch.
Cal 9, Gonzaga 5
A five-run sixth inning put the Bears in the lead and late runs from the Bulldogs weren't enough to close the gap as Cal scrapped for an important win to close out a competitive weekend against their foes from Spokane.
Single runs in the second and fourth put Gonzaga (5-6) ahead 2-1 heading into the middle innings but the Bears were ready to capitalize when they got their chance. Cal pulled even in the fifth inning when
Jonah Davis, who finished the game 4 for 4 with three RBI, two runs and a walk, drove a double to center field to plate
Cameron Eden. Two batters later, freshman
Andrew Vaughn brought Davis around, sending his own single to center to give Cal the 3-2 lead.
Cal really opened the floodgates in the sixth. A two-run single from Davis and a sacrifice fly by Mitchell added to the lead and Vaughn put the punctuation mark on the day, hitting a towering home run to left-center to drive in two more. By the time the Bears were done, the advantage had climbed to 8-2 in favor of the men in blue and gold.
The Bears added another run on a wild pitch in the seventh and, despite three late runs from the Bulldogs, had more than enough to pick up the victory. Davis led the way offensively but Vaughn also drove in three runs with a 2-for-5 showing, Eden went 3 for 4 with three runs and a double while
Denis Karas and
Max Flower each collected two hits.
"I wasn't really trying to do too much," Davis said. "I was hunting the ball up and I've been seeing the off-speed real well lately and not trying to do too much with the pitch. I think the past couple series I've been trying to be too big and instead of letting the power come to me I've been trying to provide the power myself so I'm just letting the hands work."
Freshman
Rogelio Reyes got the start for the Bears on the mound and provided the solid start that Cal needed after a long weekend, working 5 1/3 innings and allowing two runs on five hits. He also walked three and struck out three.
Ian Lutz,
Andrew Buckley and Vaughn took it from there, allowing just one earned run the rest of the way.
Gonzaga 8, Cal 3
Rain forced Cal and Gonzaga to seek shelter on Saturday night but, once the teams resumed play on Sunday morning, the Bulldogs were ready to turn the tables on the Bears with two runs in the seventh and four more in the eighth giving the visitors the win in game three of the series.
Cal left the ballpark on Saturday with a 3-2 advantage but that didn't last through the first few innings on Sunday. A run scored on a wild pitch tied the game and an RBI single from Jacobs put Gonzaga into the lead in the seventh. One inning later, Sam Brown extended the lead with an RBI single and both Jeff Bohling and Tyler Frost added run-scoring doubles, the latter of which plated two, to put Gonzaga in command.
Right-hander
Joey Matulovich took a hard-luck no-decision after pitching six strong innings on Saturday night. Vaughn and Eden led the Cal offense with three hits apiece.
