BERKELEY – Kade Kretzschmar continues to swing a hot bat. The senior outfielder went 3-for-4 with a double and two home runs as the Cal baseball team soundly defeated visiting USF 17-3 in seven innings on Tuesday night at Stu Gordon Stadium.
 
Cal (17-16) finished the night with a season-high 17 runs, 11 coming in the bottom of the fifth inning. The Golden Bears had 12 hits on the evening, six went for extra bases. Max Handron, Caleb Lomavita, and Kretzschmar all hit home runs. Kretschmar extended his hitting streak to eight games. With his three hits tonight, he has had seven-straight multi-hit games, including five-straight games with three or more hits.
 
Andres Galan (3-1) rebounded from a rough first inning to toss five complete and earn his third win in as many starts. His line for the night: seven hits allowed, three earned runs with three walks and two strikeouts. After the top of the first, he allowed just four base runners to reach over his final four innings. Joe Williams and Jack Kirrer each tossed a scoreless inning in relief.
 
USF (14-18) finished with three runs on seven hits. Michael Campagna and Patrick Keighran both went 2-for-3 with RBI singles in the first. Taking the loss for the Dons was starter Gabriel Barrett (0-2) who allowed five runs on four hits with a walk and a strikeout in his one inning of work.
 
In the top of the first inning, the Dons put together a string of five hits to score three runs. USF got RBI singles by Campagna, Harris Williams III, and Keighran. Galan needed 25 pitches to get out of the frame and ended the threat by getting Logan Azem to strike out looking.
 
In the home half of the inning, Handron smashed a 2-2 pitch over the right field fence for his third home run of the year. He becomes the first Bear to lead off a game with a home run since Nathan Martorella did it against New Mexico on May 13, 2022. The rally did not end there, Cal loaded the bases with one out for Nathan Manning who launched a ball to right center that got past the USF center fielder for a bases-clearing triple, giving the Bears the lead for good, going up 4-3. Dom Souto added a fifth run, knocking in Manning on a sacrifice fly to center field.  
 
Kretzschmar launched the first of his two home runs in the bottom of the third. In the fifth, Cal blew the game open scoring 11 runs on six hits. Lomavita led off the frame with a single past the shortstop, the first of his two hits in the inning. Later he blasted a shot off the scoreboard in center field for his seventh home run of the season. Kretzschmar also had two hits in the inning, he had an RBI double to knock in Lomavita off reliever Hunter Holzemer in his first at-bat. Later that inning he hit a mammoth two-run home run off Kaleb Woltz. It is the first career multi-homer game for Kretzschmar.
 
Cal has won five of their last six games and has scored nine runs or more in five of those contests. In nonconference play, the Bears improve to 12-3.
 
UP NEXT
Cal will host Oregon for a three-game Pac-12 series starting Friday at 7:05 p.m. Friday and Sunday's game will be televised on Pac-12 Network, and Saturday's game will be streamed on Cal Livestream-2.
 
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