Seasons on the line for Cal Softball and Cal Baseball today (Saturday)

Both teams *should* be able to extend the season beyond Saturday

It is a big day for Cal Diamond sports! Golden Bears control their own destiny in prolonging their season beyond today.

Cal Softball in NCAA Norman Regional

The return to NCAA postseason did not go as scripted. Head coach Chelsea Spencer opted to use Sona Halijian as the starter inside the circle despite the junior having the worst numbers (sure, this is due to her being used against the top teams) among the Cal pitchers, particularly in giving up the long ball. Sure, two batters into the game, Missouri Tigers (35-24) were ahead 2-0 after a single and a homer.

Golden Bears did answer right away in B1. Junior leadoff batter Tatm Anzaldo hit a solo shot to put Cal on the board.

https://twitter.com/CalSB/status/1659709240662016000?cxt=HHwWgIC-gdmwvIguAAAA

Unfortunately, that was the only offense for the Bears (33-20-1) in a game that was mostly a 3-1 deficit before becoming a 5-1 final.

Cal fell into the losers bracket of this Norman Regional and will take on Hofstra Pride (29-26) at 2:30 PM PT. The winner of this game will get no rest in playing the loser between No.1 Oklahoma and Missouri (expected to be Missouri) at around 5:30 PM PT. All the actions are available on ESPN+.

https://twitter.com/CalSB/status/1659945526219923457

Despite the loss on Friday, Cal did come into this Regional as the 2nd best team by RPI ranking. Golden Bears will certainly not surprise anyone if they can beat Hofstra and Missouri today to fight for another day on Sunday - even if that will be the tall order of beating Oklahoma, winner of 44-straight and chasing the NCAA record of 47-straight, twice.

Elsewhere in this NCAA tournament. No.2 UCLA lost their opening game to Grand Canyon yesterday. Of course, UCLA is no Oklahoma but Cal did take 1 out of 3 against UCLA this season.

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Cal Baseball controls destiny in earning a Pac-12 Tournament berth in their regular season finale

Despite all of the statistical analytics advances in baseball over the past two decades, the one stat that most correlated to wins is hitting more homers than the opposition. After sweeping the UCLA Bruins in that key road series with four homers apiece, Cal Bears (23-26, 11-18 in Pac-12) did NOT take care of business in only winning one of three games in Berkeley against Washington State.

Cal is fighting against Washington State for the 9th and final berth to the second year of the Pac-12 Baseball Tournament. Arizona, who came into this final weekend tied with Cal and Washington State for a three-team fight for two spots, has already done enough by winning the first two games over USC. Washington State earned the tie-breaker over Cal last weekend. Cal and Washington State shared the same Pac-12 record going into Friday: Game 2 of the final weekend of the regular season.

After being routed by Washington ( 33-15, 17-11 in Pac-12) on Thursday, Cal’s bats woke up in a big way on Friday. Golden Bears again used that lot of longball strategy, hitting 5 dingers. Max Handron, Carson Crawford x2, and Caleb Lomavita x2 went deep for the Bears, who had a big 10-1 lead going to B5. This being the 2023 Cal Baseball team, Bears gave Washington a chance to cut the lead to 10-7. The last of those 5 homers in T9 made the final result 12-7 in Cal’s favor. Check out the highlights from Pac-12 Network below.

While Washington is one of the teams fighting for the No.2 spot in the Pac, Washington State is ending their season at the No.1 team in the Pac, Stanford. No doubt that David Esquer, the longtime Cal Baseball head coach, is aware that he is helping Cal by beating Washington State this weekend.

Game 2 was a standard 7-4 victory to Stanford, who just learned on Friday that they will be the No.9 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament and be one of 16 hosts.

The Thursday win by Stanford was a much more eventful 7-6 win by the Cardinal in 10-innings.

Should Cal falter today in their regular season finale at 12:05 PM PT, Golden Bears do have the lifeline of continuing the season at the Pac-12 Tournament in Arizona next week, if Stanford beats Washington State again.

Still, it will be much sweeter and far less nerve-wracking for the Golden Bears to win their way to the conference postseason.

https://twitter.com/CalBaseball/status/1659950992463663105

GO BEARS!