Cal Baseball at No.6 Cal Poly Sunday gamethread

California Golden Bears (11-10) at No. 6 Cal Poly Mustangs (18-4)

When: 1 pm

Online Video with Sync Radio Call: Big West TV

Thanks to a long overdue offensive outburst, the Bears were able to defeat the Cal Poly Mustangs on Saturday night by a score of 8-3. The Bears got an inside the park two-run homer from freshman Aaron Knapp (younger brother of former Cal All-American Andrew Knapp). Pitching-wise, senior lefty Kyle Porter got the W going 5.1 inning. Tyler Hildenberger pitching the remaining 3+ inning for the save. Hildenberger also managed to preserve the lead by getting a big double play in relief of Porter in the 6 when the score was only 5-3.

After being swept at home by UCLA last weekend, the Bears proceed to lose to Fresno State and then dropped Friday's opener by a score of 4-1. The ability to consistently hit was missing during the 5 game losing streak, with credit given to UCLA for their solid pitching staff. Bears broke out of the slump with 12 hits on Saturday. They are hoping that the bats would stay hot through this series and then on to more Pac-12 conference play.

Cal Poly will starts their sophomore right hander in Casey Bloomquist (4-0, 0.99 ERA). That's a pretty nice looking ERA, I hope the Bears can make a serious dent on that with another offensive outburst.

In 2011, Neu was hired as the Cal baseball team's pitching coach. Reuvekamp was devastated. The main reason Reuvekamp had signed with DVC was leaving.

But Neu surprised Reuvekamp and told him he wanted Reuvekamp to come with him to Cal. The Bears were in need of players, and Neu had thought of Reuvekamp, who could possibly act as a bullpen catcher or shortstop because he played both positions.

"He had to battle his way up because we had some recruits that were profiled to be a starting shortstop and catcher," Neu says. "We were not expecting him to be anything more than a backup player that could just fill a role."

As a sophomore in 2012, Reuvekamp had trouble finding the field - until that fateful Stanford game in May 2012.

In the extra-inning affair, Cal head coach David Esquer was running out of options and decided to go with Reuvekamp late in the game. Esquer told him to lean in and get hit by a pitch. Reuvekamp would fail to produce, registering an out.

But in his next at-bat, on a 3-1 count in the top of the 18th, Reuvekamp crushed a single right down the middle.

After reaching second on a sac bunt, Reuvekamp was in a position to score the go-ahead run. Tony Renda hit a grounder up the middle, and Reuvekamp was off to the races. Ahead of him, he saw the third base coach waving him home. Reuvekamp slid into home, scoring the eventual winning run.

Reuvekamp tripped on his way back to the dugout, but nothing could ruin the moment.

"It was a blur; everybody was going crazy," Reuvekamp says. "That's when I truly felt I was playing baseball for Cal. Everything came together in that moment."