Cal Baseball: Bears WALK it Off Against San Francisco
A walk-off walk to taichi Kakao sends the Golden bears into the weekend with an OOC win and season sweep over USF
BERKELEY – For the first time since joining the ACC, the pieces seem to be coming together quite nicely for Cal Baseball. After stringing together two straight ACC-series wins and coming into Wednesday night two games above .500, the Golden Bears looked to close out their regular season matchups against the team across the Bay Bridge by hosting the USF Dons for their second meeting of the season.
Earlier in the month, USF hosted the Bears for a 2:05 PM midweek matchup at Benedetti Diamond, where Cal broke through with an 8-0 victory on 10 hits and no errors while allowing just two hits and five walks to the Dons in a bullpen game that saw seven Cal pitchers, five of them being freshmen. Similarly, in yesterday’s game, Cal threw out an arsenal of eight arms against USF, behind a start from two-way player Jordy Lopez, as the Bay Area’s ballclubs brought this afternoon/evening game at Stu Gordon Stadium into extra innings.
The Dons got the afternoon started with a leadoff home run from Myles Kallinger in the top of the 1st to take an immediate 1-0 lead in the game. Jordy Lopez would work through the inning and put two runners on in the top of the 2nd before Cade Colombara was brought in to close out the inning with both runners stranded on base.
California was unable to produce any runs against USF’s opener Alan Gonzales, but they did get a run across against freshman reliever Thomas Gonzales as Gannon Snyder put two runners in scoring position on a well-executed sac-bunt that allowed a groundout to second from Kalen Applefield to be plenty of time and space to bring Ethan Kodama home from third and tie the game at one a piece. The Bears added another run in the bottom half of the 4th against the Dons’ Magnus Nelson as a couple of hits and a walk loaded the bases for California, with Nelson making a pick-off attempt at first base that would allow Applefield to score from third and put the Bears up 2-1.
USF would end up tying the game back up in the top half of the 6th as Jett Wright came in to pitch and gave up two quick walks and threw a wild pitch to put both runners in scoring position for a deep line drive hit to Joshua Hanson in center being plenty of space to allow the runner to tag up from third and make it 2-2. The Bears once again only allowed that tie to last so long, as Cal took advantage of sloppy defense from the Dons at shortstop that allowed Hanson to score on an error and make it a one-run lead once again in Berkeley.
Going into the top of the 9th with a one-run lead, Take Kreis remained on the mound for the Bears after retiring four-straight, and after striking out Jayden Garrison to lead off the inning, Wyatt Davis ripped a single down the right field line before advancing on another wild pitch. Tino Vassell then singled to left to put runners on the corners with one out, and Mike Neu made the switch to bring in Ryan Spalliero from the bullpen in a high-intensity save situation. Spalliero got Kallinger to roll over to short for an easy groundball, but the runner from third got a great jump and scored easily as the Bears settled for the out at first and allowed USF to tie the game at 3-3.
California was retired three-up-three-down in the 9th by USF’s Chris Byhre before the Dons made an offensive push in the top half of the 10th with Eddison Esquivel leading off the inning with a base hit up the middle, followed by a single to right from TJ Rodgers. After getting Burke to strike out swinging, Ethan Foley came in to relieve Spalliero and immediately threw a wild pitch to allow the runners to advance – but got out of the inning after getting Trevor Busby to strike out swinging and Jayden Garrison to ground out to third to end the inning and bring the Bears up to bat.
Paul Wheeler took the mound for the Dons in extra innings and on an 0-1 pitch, plunked Ethan Kodama before walking Hanson on four straight pitches out of the zone. Gannon, for the second time of the day, laid down another great sacrifice bunt to put both runners into scoring position, only for Applefield to then get hit by an 0-1 fastball to load the bases for Graduate Transfer Taichi Kakao from Auckland, New Zealand, who ALSO took four straight balls, thus walking home the game-winning run and giving the Bears a season sweep over the Dons in 2026.
California improves to 21-18 on the season as Ethan Foley picked up his third win of the year, while Wheeler picks up his first loss, and the Dons drop to 19-19 on the year. The Golden Bears return to action on Friday evening, as Cal takes on Miami in Coral Gables, Florida, for an ACC series down in the Sunshine State.
All three games will be streamed on ACCNX/ESPN+.