Playoff Berth Imminent as Bears Roll

Officially, this weekend's series between the No. 16 Cal and No. 6 Stanford baseball teams ended Sunday afternoon when Charlie Cutler flied out to left field for the final out in an 8-5 loss.

But as far as the Bears were concerned, if the series had ended after game two it would've been just fine.

"(Saturday) night was the best we've felt all season," center fielder Brett Jackson said.

That's because earlier that day, when Cutler found himself on the defensive end of a game-ending flyout to left field, the Bears did something that the program hasn't done since 2001 and that this group of guys has never done-secured their invitation to the NCAA tournament.

"Getting that second game, it felt like a clinch," Jackson said. "We're still not sure, but it's definitely taking some pressure off of (the upcoming series against) UCLA.

"But we still want to close."

Apparently, Cal isn't hedging its bets after being left out of the tournament last year. But it was a different story towards the end of 2007, when the team found itself scrambling for a late way into the postseason and fell just short after losing its final series to Washington.

This year, the Bears are leaving no doubt. This time, the playoff berth is theirs to lose.

That is, it was Cal's to lose until Saturday afternoon, when they locked it up for good behind a strong outing from the mercurial Craig Bennigson.

"We'd like to get two more just to put the nail in the coffin," coach David Esquer said. "But I think we proved that we're that type of quality team."

At this point, there is no valid argument for keeping the Bears from the tournament appearance that has eluded them for the last six years.

Not with a 21-6-2 record in non-conference games, which includes a 10-game winning streak early in the year and a three-game sweep of then-No. 5 Long Beach State.

Not with a winning record in the dog-eat-dog Pac-10, which had three preseason No. 1 teams and has proceeded to beat up on itself during the conference schedule.

And definitely not now, after Cal went into Sunken Diamond-where it was swept in convincing fashion in 2007-and took two out of three from the No. 6 team in the country.

The series win at the home of the Cardinal was the Bears' first since 1995, and it was the first series loss that Stanford has suffered in its last 13 three-game series.

For the first time all season, Cal found a way to win consistently without big contributions from David Cooper and Josh Satin, who went a combined 3-for-22.

For the first time, the Bears really proved that they can win on the road after compiling a 7-8 away record going into the series and losing in embarrassing fashion at Arizona State and USC.

"We're going to be able to go on the road," Esquer said. "That's what we're going to have to do against quality teams (in the postseason), and we got a taste of doing that."

And when Cutler made the final out in the top of the ninth with two outs, a runner on and the chance to bring Cooper up as the potential tying run, this young Bears team played it cool.

They turned their rally caps back around, lined up to shake hands with the Cardinal and walked out of Sunken Diamond a little satisfied, a little disappointed, and not at all giddy with everything that they had just accomplished.

Almost like they'd done it before.

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