Smith's Pair of Homers Spark Resurgent Bears

In all three games of the No. 16 Cal baseball team's series with No. 20 Arizona this weekend, Blake Smith came up clutch at the plate in the late innings.

Friday, Smith's home run off of hard-throwing reliever Ryan Perry in the seventh was insurance in an 11-5 win. The next day, his eighth-inning homer-again off a Perry fastball-turned out to be the game winner.

And on Sunday, well, at the very least Smith's two-run triple in the eighth made the Bears' most lopsided home loss of the season a little more respectable.

The Wildcats avoided being swept in Berkeley for the first time since 1996 with a 16-5 win on Sunday afternoon, but not before Cal (29-15-2, 9-9 in the Pac-10) took the first two games of the series to return to its winning ways after a season-long four-game losing streak.

"I was proud of our guys coming back, winning the series and really kind of stabilizing ourselves," coach David Esquer said. "It wasn't a disaster not to win (Sunday), but it really would've helped us. We need to get that sweep back that we had a week ago."

Arizona (31-15, 8-10) led 4-1 in the fifth inning of Sunday's game when the wheels fell off for the Bears.

With two outs and a man on second, Todd Fitzgerald came in for starter Alex Rollin and walked two straight batters to load the bases. Brian Diemer then relieved Fitzgerald and gave up an RBI single to Bryce Ortega, a bases-loaded walk to Bobby Coyle and a two-run single to Colt Sedbrook before finally getting out of the inning.

Arizona then scored two in the sixth, two more in the seventh and four runs in the eighth to jump out to a 16-1 lead.

"That game just got away from us," Esquer said. "But it was a closer game than you really think. I think even of the first eight runs were preventable by just ordinary good defense."

The Bears struck for three runs in the bottom of the eighth when Smith tripled and then scored on Austin Booker's infield single. David Cooper hit his conference-leading 18th home run in the ninth, but it was too little, too late.

It was a different story on Saturday afternoon, when Smith led off the bottom of the eighth in a 5-5 tie. Facing Perry-who was clocked as high as 97 mph-Smith turned on a fastball and hit a line drive that just cleared the fence in right field.

"As the leadoff guy I was just trying to get on base any way," Smith said. "He threw two fastballs away and I guessed fastball again and he brought it to me. I was just trying to get a good piece of it and I kind of ran into one."

Matt Gorgen-who had entered the game in the top of the eighth and worked out of a bases-loaded, two-out jam-pitched a scoreless ninth inning and earned his first win of the year.

Friday was a rematch of last year's pitchers duel between Tyson Ross and Preston Guilmet in Tucson, which Arizona won 1-0 in 11 innings. This time, Ross (7-2, 4.47 ERA) got the better of his counterpart, scattering 11 hits and three runs over eight innings in an 11-5 win.

Cal led 5-2 before exploding for six runs in the seventh. Center fielder Brett Jackson did the majority of the damage as he turned on the first pitch he saw from Perry and hit it into Edwards Stadium for a grand slam to put the Bears up 10-2. Smith then capped the Bears' scoring with a solo shot off of Perry.

"In a way, (the loss Sunday is) OK because you took the first two games and you beat them in the series and that's what matters," Jackson said. "But when it comes down to it, the best teams sweep and the teams that win championships sweep, and we've got to start coming out more on Sundays starting next weekend."

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