Cal Baseball: Bears Go 1-2 Against No. 23 Virginia, Dropping Their Fourth Straight Series
The California Golden Bears hosted in-conference opponent, the Virginia Cavaliers, for their first ever ACC matchup in Berkeley.
The California Golden Bears Men’s Baseball team brought the ACC action to Berkeley, hosting the No. 23 in the nation, the University of Virginia Cavaliers at Stu Gordon Stadium for a weekend series of conference play. Virginia entered the weekend at 10-5, dropping their first ACC series of the year against the Boston College Eagles 1-2 at home in Charlottesville, while the Golden Bears have not won a series since their opening matchup against Nevada, having dropped back-to-back-to-back series to Houston, Santa Clara, and Duke last weekend.
The last time the two Public Ivy institutions played against one another was in 2011 when the 35-win Golden Bears won the Santa Clara Super Regional and met the Charlottesville Super Regional champion Virginia in the first round of the 2011 College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska- the last time Cal has appeared in the CWS. Virginia won both games against Cal in Omaha and nearly 14 years later, they meet again as divisional opponents.
Friday, 3/14: Bears Take Game 1.
California has been able to rely on Austin Turkington to get the Bears the early series momentum and come in ready to play. Last week, Turkington went 7.0 innings and struck out 10 against the Duke Blue Devils in the Bears’ only win in Durham, NC last weekend, and he looked to continue that dominance at home in Berkeley under the lights on Friday night against UVA. Turkington got through the first inning stranding Cav’s first baseman Chris Arroyo at first after he got on with a two-out single, and was able to retire the next six Virginia batters to shut down the Cavs in the first three innings.
Virginia head coach Brian O’Connor in his 22nd season with the school went to starting pitcher Jay Woolfolk for his fifth start of the year to open up the series in Berkeley against the Golden Bears and was able to get through the bottom of the 1st with no damage after walking Seth Gwynn and retiring Advincula, Campbell, and Tayman. The Bears got to Woolfolk in the bottom half of the second with a leadoff PJ Moutzouridis walk and a Max Handron single to left field to follow. Alex Birge fouled out to get an out recorded for the Cavaliers, but a Dominic Smaldino single would allow Moutzouridis to score easily, and a throwing error by Eric Becker at short brought Handron in to put the Bears up 2-0. Jacob French kept the rally going with a base hit toward the left side of the infield, which put Smaldino at third for Advincula to hit an RBI sacrifice fly to left field to bring him home, bringing the score to 3-0 Cal.
The Bears would add two more in the bottom of the 4th with a two-run home run from Seth Gwynn, and Turkington would not give up a run to the Cavaliers until the top of the 5th when he hit James Nunnallee with a pitch and advanced him to second on a wild pitch. Nunnallee would advance to third on a base hit by Luke Hanson before scoring on a sacrifice fly to bring the score to 5-1.
Woolfolk’s night would end with 5.0 innings pitched, six hits, five runs, three walks, and four strikeouts as Dean Kampschor would come in for relief for the Cavaliers in the bottom of the 6th, but his night would be cut short as Alex Birge led off the inning with a double down the right field line before Smaldino reached on an error, and then Advincula singled up the middle of the infield to bring Birge home and extend the Golden Bears’ lead to 6-1. Kampschror’s night would end with just .1 inning pitched before Wes Arrington came in and got Gwynn to strike out looking and Campbell to line out to the right fielder to end the inning.
Turkington came back out for the top of the 7th inning, but after hitting his third batter of the night and walking Becker on four straight pitches (after getting a first-pitch strike), Spencer Dessart came in to finish the inning and kept the two runners stranded without any Virginia runners scoring. Turkington finished the night with 6.2 innings, three hits, one run, three walks, and seven strikeouts. Back-to-back great starts for the junior pitcher.
David Shaw would relieve Dessart in the top of the 9th after Dessart went 1.2 innings and struck out two- getting Becker and Godbout to go down in order and end game one of the three-game series with a surprising 6-1 victory over the No. 23 team in the nation. Head coach Mike Neu after the game stated that:
“We obviously played a really good team with an unbelievable history. They're really well-coached and have a lot of very good players. We had to play well to win, and we took advantage of a couple of their mistakes early, which really helped us." (via calbears.com)
Saturday, 3/15: I don’t even want to talk about this one.
Oh boy. This one sucked. The Golden Bears and Cavaliers played in front of the third largest crowd Cal has brought in this season thus far in Berkeley for a 2:00 PM Saturday afternoon game, going back to their second starter in the rotation, Gavin Eddy for his fifth start of the season. Last weekend against Duke, Eddy went 4.1 innings giving up only one earned run and three hits while striking out five. Freshman Virginia pitcher Tomas Valincius made his fifth start of the season as well, having made his last appearance against Boston College in UVA’s 22-16 win over the Eagles on March 8th.
The Cavaliers opened up the game with an Aidan Teel leadoff double down the left-field line but would leave him stranded in scoring position as Eddy worked out of the inning with no damage. Valincius retired the first to Cal batters he faced in the bottom half of the first, but Cade Campbell was able to connect for a two-out single to left which brought Tayman to bat for a base hit of his own. Moutzouridis kept the two-out rally going with an RBI single to right to give the Bears a 1-0 lead before Smaldino struck out swinging to end the inning and leave Tayman and Campbell stranded in scoring position.
Eddy retired the Cavaliers batters in order in the top of the 3rd inning, while Cal got one more run across the board with Campbell hitting a one-out double and scoring on an error by Godbout at second base while trying to turn a double play. Virginia was able to claw back in the top of the 4th with a two-run home run by Charlottesville native and Preseason Second Team All-American Henry Ford (not the car guy) to even the score at 2-2, making it the second home run Eddy has given up this season.
Cal responded in the bottom of the 4th with an Advincula RBI single to the right side of the infield that ended Valincius’ afternoon and brought in Graduate Student Alex Markus to relieve him from the bullpen down 2-3 to the Golden Bears. Eddy stayed in and pitched the 5th inning, only throwing seven pitches and retiring the side in order before his afternoon was over there. He finished with 5.0 innings, no strikeouts, two walks, and two earned runs on four hits with one batter hit by a pitch.
Markus would be relieved in the bottom half of the 6th inning by Kevin Jaxel, who on the first pitch he threw, gave up a lead-off double to Birge before getting pinch hitter Jack Johnson to strikeout while trying to jab at a pitch for a bunt on two strikes. Jacob French was able to reach on another throwing error by the second baseman, this time by Jackson Sirois who came in for Godbout after his defensive struggles, which allowed Birge to score and put French on second base with Advincula at the plate. Jarren was able to bring French home with an RBI single to center field before Gwynn was called out on interfering with the catcher, and Campbell struck out swinging to end the inning up 5-2 and giving all 610 fans in the Evans Diamond stands a sense of hope that Cal is about to take the series against a nationally ranked opponent AT HOME.
Hell, Cal added on even more runs in the bottom half of the 7th inning, as Ryan Tayman led off with a single on the first pitch he saw before Moutzouridis and Smaldino would both get out back-to-back. Tayman was able to advance on a wild pitch by the new relief pitcher, Blake Barker, who would give up another double to Birge that would bring Tayman home, and Kodama would follow with a double of his own that would score Birge to put the Bears up with a commanding 7-2 lead going into the top of the 8th inning.
Cole Clark pitched the top of the 8th inning for California getting out of a jam after walking two runners on, and Cal could not get any runs across in the bottom half of the inning to add any insurance runs to their five-run lead. Mike Neu went to Oliver de la Torre to try and finish the game out for the Bears and win their first-ever ACC series, but when things can go wrong, they will. The Cavaliers got the inning started with a pinch-hit single by Chone James, followed by a pinch-hit single by Walker Buchanan, and then another base hit by Luke Hanson to load the bases. Oliver de la Torre’s evening ended there, and David Shaw was brought in to try and repeat his dominance from the night before and shut the door on the Cavaliers and this game. But again, when things can go wrong, they will go wrong. Shaw hit Aidan Teel with a pitch to score James and bring Virginia within four, as the tying run came to the plate. Shaw then walked the next batter to bring in Buchanan, struck out the pinch-hitting Trey Wells to get the Bears’ first out, but then gave up an RBI single to Becker and a fielder’s choice to Ford to shrink the lead down to 7-6 with two outs in the top of the 9th. Shaw then hit Nunnallee with a pitch on a 2-2 count before Chone James got up for his second at-bat in the inning, this time hitting a two-RBI double to right center field that scored Becker and Harris, putting Virginia up 8-7. Buchanan then doubled to the right field with James and Nunnalle scoring and the Bears were now down 10-7 going into the bottom of the 9th inning, after being up 7-2.
Cal would get some momentum going in the bottom of the 9th as Birge and Hoffman both reached via walk with one out, and Advincula was able to connect for an RBI double that was originally called a foul ball but was overturned with two outs to keep the Cal-comeback hopes alive, but Gwynn would pop-up to the first baseman in foul territory to end the comeback and game for the Golden Bears, losing 10-8. An absolutely heartbreaking way to lose, and an even more frustrating game to watch.
Sunday, 3/16: A Game Lost in the Second Inning.
Sunday’s rubber match for the Golden Bears and Cavaliers was headlined by Cal starting pitcher Ethan Foley and UVA’s Evan Blanco. Foley made his fifth appearance and start of the season, where in his last start against Duke, he went 3.0 innings and gave up four hits and two earned runs while striking out three. Blanco had a dominant 2024 season going 8-3 with a 3.62 ERA in 18 starts, and has yet to lose a game this season in the four games he has pitched in coming into Sunday’s getaway game.
The Bears struck first in the bottom of the 1st inning with Advincula leading off and connecting for a base hit to left field and scoring on a Ryan Tayman RBI double, but Foley struggled as the Cavaliers were all over his fastball and Henry Ford led off the top of the 2nd with a home run to right field towards the Edwards Track, and Virginia rallied four runs across on two-out singles and a double to end Foley’s afternoon with just 1.2 innings, seven hits allowed, seven runs, four earned runs, and no strikeouts. Lucas Alaniz came in to relieve him in the second inning to try and get out of the jam but walked Ford to load the bases for Godbout who hit a grand slam to bring Virginia to an early 9-1 lead. Buchanan would lead off the top of the 3rd for UVA with a first-pitch home run as well to make it 10-1, and Alaniz’s day would end as he would be relieved by Logan Piper.
Blanco worked through the Bears’ lineup efficiently and did not give up another run until the bottom of the 4th when Cal got the first two batters on base with back-to-back singles by Cade Campbell and Ryan Tayman, but one of the only ways Cal had been able to capitalize on runs over the weekend was through errors at second base and this was another instance of that as Chone James committed his second of the weekend which allowed Campbell to score and brought Schmidt to the plate with Tayman at third base. Schmidt was able to bring Tayman home on an RBI single, but Smaldino would follow that up with grounding into a double play to end the inning and leave Cal down 10-3 going into the 5th.
The game remained relatively quiet up until the top of the 7th, as Freshman Miles Tenscher made his collegiate debut for the Bears but showed that the first game nerves are very much a real thing. Tenscher walked Ford on four pitches before letting him advance on two separate wild pitches, which allowed him to score on a groundout to shortstop and put the Cavs up 11-3. The Bears were able to gain a couple of runs back with a pinch-hit RBI single by Jeff Hoffman that scored Birge, as well as an RBI single by Advincula to bring Cal within six heading into the 8th inning.
Virginia would not score any more runs from there, but neither would Cal. Cal would go on to lose their fourth straight series and drop to 9-10 on the season, with a 2-4 conference record. Cal led in each game this weekend against Virginia but came out on top only once as the Cavaliers advanced to 12-6 and 3-3 in ACC play.
Cal travels to Moraga, CA today to play against Saint Mary’s to begin their nine-game road trip, before they play against their rival and No. 14 Stanford in their first-ever ACC matchup after playing against one another every year as members of west coast/pacific-based conferences.