BearTalk

Cal golfer Michael Weaver wants just one gift on his 22nd birthday a week from Friday while playing in the Masters at Augusta, Ga.

“I want a tee time for Saturday,” Weaver said. “I’m confident if I play well, I’ll make the cut.”

A junior in Cal’s Haas School of Business undergraduate program, Weaver is the first golfer to earn a spot in the world’s most prestigious tournament while still a Berkeley student.

Funny thing is, he isn’t even rated the best golfer on Cal’s top-ranked team.

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Climbing the chart for the second straight day, the Cal men’s golf team moved into a tie for fourth place as three rounds of stroke play ended at the NCAA tournament.

After starting in 15th place on Tuesday and climbing into a tie for eighth on Wednesday, the Bears have qualified for match play competition beginning Friday.

Cal, the Pac-12 champion, shot a 287 to share fourth place with San Diego State with a 19-over-par score of 871. The Bears and Aztecs will meet Friday in match play quarterfinal action.

Alabama finished first with a seven-over score of 859, two strokes ahead of UCLA.

Kent State and Florida State finished in a tie for the eighth and final spot and will stage a playoff Friday morning to determine the survivor and the right to take on Alabama.

Cal’s Max Homa shot a 68 and has moved into a four-way tie for ninth place. Brandon Hagy, tied for 16th after two rounds, shot a 75 and now sits in a tie for 45th.

The Golden Bears moved from 15th place to a tie for eighth on the second day of the NCAA Championships at the Riviera Country Club at Pacific Palisades. The top eight teams after Thursday’s final 18-hole round of stroke play advance to match play, beginning Friday.

Cal shot 289 for a 36-hole total of 584, 16 over par. The leader still is Alabama, at four-over 572 for a four-stroke lead over second-place UCLA.

Brandon Hagy (71-73-144) remains the Bears’ individual leader, followed by Max Homa (76-70-146).

The Cal men’s golf team is tied for 15th through the first day of the NCAA Championships after shooting an 11-over-par 295 on the par 71 Riviera Country Club course at Pacific Palisades.

The Bears are five strokes out of a top-eight spot that will qualify them for match play beginning Friday. The final 36 holes of stroke play will be contested Wednesday and Thursday.

“We’re not in a bad spot; we’re not in a great spot,” coach Steve Desimone said on Cal’s website.

 Alabama is the first-round leader at one-over 285, meaning that none of the 30 teams shot par on Tuesday.

Cal’s Brandon Hagy is tied for 13th individually after shooting a 71. Teammate Pace Johnson is tied for 27th at 72.

One year after dodging program extinction and making an unlikely run to the College World Series, the Cal baseball team closed its regular season with a  5-3 road loss to No. 14 Stanford.

The Bears (29-25, 12-18 Pac-12), despite winning two of three games at Stanford this weekend, are considered a longshot to earn an NCAA tournament bid.

Chadd Krist went 2 for 3 with his 65 career double — an ongoing school record — for the Bears. Mitch Delfino homered in the loss.

– WOMEN’S SOCCER: Ex-Cal star Alex Morgan was officially named to the U.S. Olympic team which will try to win its third straight gold medal this summer in London.

– WOMEN’S CREW: The top-ranked Cal women’s squad wound up third for the second straight season at the NCAA championships at Mercer Lake at West Winsor, N.J. Virginia won the title.

–WOMEN’S TENNIS: Freshman Zsofi Susanyi, ranked 13th in the NCAA, was ousted from the NCAA singles tournament atter a 6-2, 6-2 loss to fifth-ranked Mallory Burdette of Stanford. Susanyi, from Hungary, finished the year with a record of 41-8.

Top-seeded Cal (56-5) will face LSU (38-23) on Thursday at the College World Series in Oklahoma City in the opening round of the College World Series.

The Bears routed LSU 14-3 back on Feb. 19 in Las Vegas, getting home runs from Jace Williams, Breana Kostreba, Jolene Henderson and Frani Echavarria in a five-inning game.

The Bears secured the Berkeley super regional title and advanced to their 12th CWS berth with a 2-0 win over Washington on Sunday afternoon at Levine-Fricke Field.

The NCAA apparently does not award an MVP award at this event, but clearly no Cal player contributed more to the success of the past two weekends than junior pitcher Jolene Henderson.

She pitched a pair of shutouts at Washington in the super regional and enters the CWS with a streak of 23 consecutive scoreless innings. Her ERA for the postseason: 0.48. In other words, a half-run every seven-inning game.

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The top-seeded Golden Bears (55-5) blanked Washington 5-o in the NCAA softball super regionals at Levine-Fricke Field and need just one victory on Sunday to secure their 12th trip to the College World Series.

Slugger Valerie Arioto, rarely given a pitch to hit in recent games, blasted a two-run homer in the first inning and Jolene Henderson threw her 16th shutout of the season.

Arioto now has 23 home runs on the season — an ongoing school record — and 54 for her career.

Henderson improved to 5-0 in the postseason, her ERA dipping to 0.57 over the past two weekends.

Game 2 is Sunday at 4 p.m., with a third game, if necessary, at 6:30 p.m. The games are sold out, but will be aired on ESPN2.

Tony Renda singled home Mike Reuvekamp with two outs in the top of the 18th inning and Cal baseball beat No. 14 Stanford 5-4 in a marathon at Sunken Diamond.

Reuvekamp singled to left to open the 18th and was bunted to second by Danny Oh. Renda drove in the game-winner for the Bears (28-24, 11-17 Pac-12) with a single to center.

Logan Scott pitched 5 1/3 innings of three-hit relief to get the victory. Justin Jones escaped one last comeback try by the Cardinal (37-15, 17-11) in the bottom of the 18th to earn the save and end the six-hour contest.

The victory clinched a winning season for the Bears, who play again at Stanford on Saturday and Sunday to complete their 2012 schedule.

The final rally was preceded by wild 12th-inning fireworks by both clubs.

Chadd Krist hit a two-out, two-run double in the top of the 12th, giving the Bears a 4-2 lead.

But in the bottom of the 12th, Stanford scored once off Cal’s third pitcher, Michael Lowden, who left the bases loaded for reliever Scott. Pinch-hitter Brett Michael Duran then delivered a game-tying single. The Bears sent the game to the 13th when second baseman Reuvekamp (Miramonte HS) made a relay throw home to gun down baserunner Austin Wilson at the plate. 

Cal got 7 2/3 innings from starter Matt Flemer, who scattered seven hits and allowed just one run. Flemer dueled Stanford starter Mark Appel (Monte Vista HS) — regarded as possibly the No. 1 pick in the upcoming baseball draft — on even terms before giving way to reliever Joey Donofrio in the eighth. Donofrio pitched 2 1/3 innings of scoreless, one-hit ball.

The Bears led 1-0 in the second inning when Andrew Knapp delivered an RBI double and tied the game at 2-2 after an RBI groundout by Darrel Matthews in the eighth.

– TRACK AND FIELD: Redshirt freshman Scott Esparza (Amador Valley HS) qualified for the NCAA championship meet with a mark of 206 feet, 3 inches in the hammer throw that ranked No. 5 all-time at Cal. Esparza set a personal best by more than eight feet while finishing eighth in the NCAA Regional preliminary meet at Austin, Texas.

Junior Chad Jones leaped 51-3 1/2 to qualify 11th in the triple jump.

The NCAA championships will be held June 6-9 at Des Moines, Iowa.

Cal-UW softball preview box

The distance between top-seeded Cal and No. 16 Washington appears large entering Saturday’s NCAA super regional softball opener at Levine-Fricke Field. Coach Diane Ninemire knows that isn’t the case.

The Bears are 54-5, having won the Pac-12 title and finished the season atop both national polls for seven consecutive weeks. The Huskies are 39-17, eighth-place finishers in the conference.

But when Cal and UW faced off for the first time this season two months ago in Berkeley, everything still was up for grabs.

The Bears were No. 1 nationally, but the Huskies were close behind at No. 3, boasting a 32-1 record and looking every bit a contender for the Pac-12 crown.

Then Cal pulled off a three-game sweep, sending Washington’s season spiraling in the wrong direction, losing 15 of its next 18.

But it could have been different.

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