BERKELEY – The California baseball team (9-8, 2-2 ACC) posted a convincing 6-1 win over No. 23/19/14 Virginia (10-6, 1-3 ACC) in the Golden Bears' first-ever ACC home game Friday night at Stu Gordon Stadium. Austin Turkington (3-2) picked up his second straight victory on the mound before relievers Spencer Dessart and David Shaw closed out the game. Seth Gwynn and Jarren Advincula both drove in a pair of runs with Gwynn's coming on a key two-run homer in the bottom of the fifth. Jacob French (2-4) was the only Cal player with more than one hit.

"It was a big win," head coach Mike Neu said. "Getting a win on Friday is big any time. We obviously played a really good team with an unbelievable history. They're really well coached and have a lot of very good players. We had to play well to win, and we took advantage of a couple of their mistakes early, which really helped us."

Cal tallied three runs in the bottom of the second to start the game's scoring. A leadoff walk by PJ Moutzouridis got the inning started and Max Handron followed with a single to put Bears on first and second with no outs before Moutzouridis stole third two batters later. Dominic Smaldino then plated Moutzouridis with an RBI single for the first run of the game on what ended up to be the most impactful play of the contest. Smaldino took a big turn around first after his run-scoring single and looked like he would be thrown out trying to get back to first but the throw from Virginia shortstop Eric Becker hit Smaldino in the back of the helmet and caromed into right field. Handron scored all the way from first on the play and Smaldino would up on third, where he later scored on Advincula's sacrifice fly in foul territory down the left field line.

The Bears added a pair of runs in the fifth to go ahead 5-0 when French singled with one out and scored two batters later on Gwynn's shot over the left field wall.

Virginia scored its lone run of the game in the top of the fifth when James Nunnallee was hit by a pitch, moved to second on a wild pitch and third on Luke Hanson's single before scoring on a sacrifice fly from Becker.

Cal got its final run in the bottom of the sixth to take a 6-1 lead when Alex Birge led off with a double, moved to third on the Cavalier's second error of the game and scored on Advincula's RBI single.

Dessart got the Bears out of a jam in the top of the seventh after Turkington had walked one batter and hit another by coming on with two runners on base to retire Henry Godbout on a lineout to Gwynn in center field.

Two innings later, Shaw picked up Dessart by getting the final two outs of the game after Dessart had hit a batter and walked another earlier in the top of the ninth.

Hanson (2-3) had half of Virginia's four hits.

Virginia starter Jay Woolfolk (1-1) took the loss, allowing five runs (four earned) on six hits with three walks and four strikeouts over the first 5.0 innings.

"We just need to keep our hunger to win," Gwynn said. "It shouldn't be quenched after one game. We've got to go win the week tomorrow and get the sweep on Sunday, but we're not looking that far ahead yet."

The three-game series continues Saturday (2 pm) before concluding Sunday (1 pm) with live video streams of both games available on ACCNX/ESPN+. The Saturdays at the Stu mini-plan for all five ACC Saturday home games will make its' debut Saturday and an autograph session will follow after the game. Sunday will serve as Kids' Day and there will also be a St. Patrick's Day celebration.
 
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MORE NOTES

• Turkington retired the leadoff batter in each of his first six innings
• Jarren Advincula extended his string of consecutive games reaching base to a team-high 12 in a row
• Jacob French is 8-of-14 (.571) over his last four games