Cal Baseball: Broncos Take 3 From Bears in Four-Game Home & Away Series
The Bears' Sunday 19-3 slugfest victory was not enough as the Broncos took 3/4 against Cal in a two game home and two game away out-of-conference series.
The California Golden Bears baseball team does not look like the same team from last season. Mike Neu and the squad opened the 2024 season 9-3 in their first 12 games, while this year’s squad is sitting at .500 (6-6) after losing both out-of-conference series against the Houston Cougars and now the Santa Clara Broncos.
Santa Clara entered Friday night’s game at Evans Diamond in Berkeley with a record of 4-3. The team won the opening series against CSU Northridge, dropped 2/3 against UC Davis, and won an impressive Tuesday night showdown against the rising San Jose State Spartans.
The Bears were coming off their first extra innings game of the season, where they defeated Cal State Bakersfield 6-5 in 11 innings.
Friday, 2/28: Santa Clara Strikes First.
The Bears’ pitching rotation seems to be rounding itself out for what we should see for the 2025 spring season, with opening matchups of series going to starting pitcher Austin Turkington for the third consecutive time. Turkington opened the game by hitting his first batter, Max Ross on a 1-2 count, got the next batter to strike out swinging in three pitches, gave up a base hit to left fielder Mateo Garcia to put runners on the corners, and recording an out at second base via fielders choice to allow Ross to score and give the Broncos the early lead. The Broncos would go on to score two more runs off a base hit RBI from Dylan Joyce- who would score on a Johnny Luetzow double to right-center field before Turkington ended the inning with a strikeout.
Santa Clara starting pitcher Brandom Gomez was coming off seven ERs in a 3.0 innings outing loss against UC Davis last Friday and came into the bottom of the first inning, giving up a leadoff-base hit to Jarren Advincula, who scored on a Seth Gwynn RBI double. Gwynn would score on an error that put Cade Campbell on base, but the Bears’ rally ended there, and they would never go on to take the lead in this ballgame.
The night remained relatively quiet for both dugouts as the game went on. Turkington was relieved in the top of the 4th inning after surrendering a hit by pitch and wild pitch by David Shaw. Shaw would remain in the game for its entirety, only giving up an unearned run in the top of the 5th, as well as an RBI single in the top of the 9th.
Brandom Gomez would be relieved after a 5.0 inning outing where he gave up one earned run, struck out seven, and walked one. Max Bayles would finish the night for Santa Clara, as the Bears would strand a total of nine runners on base, including two in the bottom of the 9th inning, in their 3-5 loss to the Broncos, dropping to 5-4 this season.
Saturday, 3/1: Call Falls to Santa Clara, Again
The Bears hosted their last game of their 10-game homestand Saturday afternoon, where they played Santa Clara for the last time before they will take a bus down to the South Bay and finish this four-game series at Stephen Schott Stadium.
This Bay Area matchup went to Golden Bears starter Gavin Eddy, who picked up Cal’s only win against Houston when the Cougars were in Berkeley last week. Eddy struggled with command in this game, as he walked his first two batters on 4-0 counts before recording his first out by striking out looking Mateo Garcia on a 3-2 pitch. Eddy got out of the top of the 1st with no runs or hits after second baseman Malcolm Williams lined into a double play to end the inning.
The Broncos went to Sr. Pitcher Victor Martinez for Saturday’s game, and Martinez appeared to be in midseason form, allowing one hit and zero runs in 7.0 innings, walking four batters but striking out seven as the Golden Bears could not get any offensive momentum going against him besides a lone double by Cade Campbell in the bottom of the 2nd inning.
Eddy would keep the Broncos at bay for the outing as well, but after recording an out to start the top of the 6th inning, he walked back-to-back batters to put two runners on before being pulled for Cole Clark. Clark’s first batter would drive in a run on a fielding error by Advinicula, putting Santa Clara up 1-0, another lead Cal would never overtake in back-to-back games.
Clark would give up a two-RBI double in the top of the 7th inning, as well as an unearned run in the top of the 9th inning due to a catcher’s interference by Alex Birge, who was just subbed in for Ryan Tayman after a pinch runner substitution in the 8th. That runner would score on a throwing error by Advincula, growing the Bronco lead to 4-1 going into the Bears’ last chance for the night.
Dominic Smaldino and Jacob French trading doubles in the bottom half of the 9th would not be enough for Cal to come back and avoid the 0-2 sweep at home, as Campbell, Handron, and Tremain would all go down on strikes to end the game 4-2, Santa Clara. Cal sits at .500 before entering ACC play.
Sunday, 3/2: Bears Homer 8 Times to Tie University Record in 19-3 Road Win.
I may be biased, but Santa Clara has one of the best ballparks in college baseball. I am biased because I used to play here as a kid for baseball camps that my dad would take me to, and they were awesome. Anyway, Cal demolished Santa Clara in a seven-inning mercy rule where they homered eight times, the second most for an NCAA Divison I team this season behind BYU’s 10 against CSUN.
After getting the no-decision last Sunday against Houston, Cal starter Ethan Foley returned to the mound for Cal’s first away game of the 2025 season. The Broncos had not played a home game since February 16th and went to Freshman Tyler Alleman, who made one single appearance last season before utilizing his “redshirt” and gaining his year of eligibility back. Allerman has come out of the bullpen in his prior three games this season, so this would be his first career NCAA start.
The Bears got no runs across in the top of the 1st inning after Seth Gwynn roped a double down the left field line, but Santa Clara did no damage in the bottom half of the inning either as Foley retired the Broncos in order. The Bears would go down in order in the top of the 2nd, and SC got the early lead as Malcolm Williams hit a leadoff triple and scored on a sacrifice fly to go up 1-0 going into the 3rd inning.
Get ready to read a lot of this: Cal led off the inning with an Alex Birge home run to left-center field to tie the game, but Santa Clara gained two runs back in the bottom half of the 3rd with a leadoff solo shot by Max Ross and an RBI single by Malcolm Williams.
How does Cal respond? Cade Campbell hits a leadoff homerun in the top of the 4th to cut the Bronco’s lead to one, but Tayman, French, and Moutzouridis all put the ball in play but into outs to retire the side for Allerman and preserve the lead while it lasted. Foley would finish his afternoon for the Bears, going 4.2 innings with three ER, four strikeouts, one walk, and two HBP. Spencer Dessart would come in for the “long relief” appearance to close the game out for the Bears as they began their offensive tear.
In the top of the 5th inning, Smaldino led off with a walk and scored on Alex Birge’s second home run of the night to put the Golden Bears up 4-3. Allerman’s day would end here as he would be relieved by Jace Gillmore. Matthew Thomas would go back-to-back with Birge with a solo home run of his own, and three batters later, Cade Campbell hit his second home run of the night to put Cal up 6-3.
Moutzouridis led off the 6th with another Cal-lead-off home run, followed by consecutive Smaldino, Birge, Thomas, and Advincula walks to score one and load the bases for a Seth Gwynn sacrifice RBI, putting the Bears up 9-3. In his next at bat, Cade Campbell hit his third homerun of the day, this time a three-run home run, tying the school record for the most in a game. Smaldino and Birge would both pick up RBI singles later in the inning, giving the California Golden Bears a 14-3 lead going into the bottom half of the inning.
Santa Clara would go down in order as Cal never eased up. The top of the 7th inning started with another leadoff home run for Cal. This time, Jarren Advincula joined the party. Campbell hit a triple to finish his day, going 4/5 with three home runs and five RBIs, and scored on a Ryan Tayman double to right. Tayman scored on a couple of wild pitches, and the Bears plated home two more runs on a Moutzouridis RBI triple and a Smaldino RBI fielder’s choice. The Broncos had no fight left in them, and the game was called due to mercy rule at seven innings, at 19-3. Cal would take this slugfest-high into Monday, looking to even the series and be two games above .500 before they play their first ever ACC game in school history against the Duke Blue Devils on March 7th.
Monday, 3/3: Santa Clara Takes the Series
Cal looked to even up the series and end the opening slate of games with a getaway win against the Santa Clara University Broncos on Monday night at Schott Stadium, and as per tradition in the last couple series, relied on a bullpen game to finish the battle against the South Bay squad.
The Broncos went with R-Jr. Sebastian Schreiber, for his third start of the season, is looking to close out the Bears and head to Austin with a series win before facing off with the Longhorns. Campbell would stay hot in the top of the 1st inning with a two-out double to left field, and back-to-back walks would load the bases for Smaldino, but a popup to the center fielder ended the inning, stranding three and scoring none.
Mike Neu’s bullpen game was spearheaded by Ryan Spalliero for his third game of the 2025 season, and like his last outing, he struggled with command, loading the bases on two hit by pitches and a walk but did not give up a run before getting out of it unharmed.
The game would be a back-and-forth pitchers/defensive dual, as no runs came across until the bottom of the 5th inning, when Cole Tremain came in to pitch and hit Mateo Garcia on a 1-2 count who advanced to second on a passed ball by Birge. A Ben Cleary double would score Garcia from second, and the Broncos gained the early lead for each of the four games of the series against Cal.
Tenscher would relieve Tremain in the bottom half of the 7th, but quickly loaded the bases after giving up two walks and a single before hitting Williams and giving up the second run of the ballgame to go down 0-2. Alaniz came in to relieve Tenscher with one out, and he walked his first batter to score a run, threw a wild pitch to score a second runner, and walked another batter before throwing ANOTHER wild pitch that scored Williams. Cal was down 0-1 at the start of the inning, and after another pitching change that brought in Tucker Bougie, the Broncos scored once again on a hit by pitch RBI, a walk, a wild pitch, and an RBI single to put Santa Clara up 9-0 by the time the third out was finally recording for Cal’s pitchers.
The Bears would go down for the top of the 8th inning, and the Broncos would leave two runners stranded for the bottom half. All they needed to do was close the game and series out, and a lone walk in the top of the 9th was all Cal could plate across as the Bears were shutout 9-0 with only two hits for the night.
Schreiber would go 4.0 innings, striking out eight batters and walking three. Reliever Henry Stewart was credited with the win as he came in relief for 3.0 innings and allowed no walks or hits while hitting one batter. Santa Clara moves to 7-4 on the season and has a three-game weekend series against the University of Texas Longhorns and a single Wednesday night game against San Jose State at home in Santa Clara before West Coast Conference play begins for the Broncos against Grand Canyon University.
Cal drops to .500 and travels to Durham, NC, to play Duke at Jack Coombs Field on Friday through Sunday. Game times will be at 1 PM (Fri.), noon (Sat.), and 9 AM (Sun) PT. This will be Cal’s first-ever ACC baseball matchup, and the Blue Devils recently dropped out of the NCAA DI top 25 rankings.
Games will be available on ESPN+ through an ACCNX subscription.
Uni Watch Comment: That last photo is the first time I have seen Cal wearing a Bear logo on a cap with Gold brim. I am digging that.
Did I miss it in your write up or did you not talk about a home run by the Bears that was nullified due to the hitter failing to touch first on his way around the bases?