BERKELEY — The California baseball team dropped the final game of its series with Louisville on Sunday as the Cardinals avoided the sweep with a 8-5 win to snap the Golden Bears' five-game conference win streak.
 
For the first time this weekend the Cal (20-18, 6-12) jumped out to an early lead with a four-hit, four-run first inning. The first six batters reached and the Bears batted around to chase the Louisville starter. Shortstop Jett Kenady collected an RBI double and both Daniel Murillo and Carl Schmidt added RBI singles.
 
From there the Cal offense went quiet getting just one hit through the next five innings while Louisville (22-18, 7-11) chipped away with two runs in the third, fifth, and seventh innings to take a 6-4 lead.
 
The Bears answered with an RBI groundout by Murillo in the bottom of the seventh to cut it to 6-5 but that would be their final run of the series. The tying run came to the plate in the bottom of the eighth, but Cal was unable to get anything across on the Cardinals who closed out a tough weekend on a high note.
 
Freshman Otto Espinoza earned his fourth start of the season and was effective in his 4.2 innings of work. The righty allowed four earned on five hits and three walks while striking out seven in the no-decision.
 
French finished the day 2-for-4 and his former SF State teammate Murillo wrapped up an impressive weekend hitting a team-best .455 with six RBI and a 1.091 slugging percentage.
 
The Bears are back at The Stu this Tuesday to take on San Francisco at 6:05 p.m. PT on ACCNX before heading to Coral Gables, Florida to face Miami in a three-game series that starts Friday.
 
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