Cal Opens Season With 14-1 Win Over Nevada

BERKELEY – PJ Moutzouridis deposited the first pitch he saw in the 2025 season over the left field wall to put California (1-0) on the board and Cade Campbell blasted a three-run homer off the scoreboard beyond the leftcenter field fence to cap an eight-run Cal bottom of the seventh in a 14-1 win over Nevada (0-1)( at Stu Gordon Stadium on Friday evening in the 2025 season opener for both teams.

Moutzouridis' solo homer with one out in the bottom of the first inning would be the only run either team would score until back-to-back two-out doubles in the bottom of the fifth by Seth Gwynn and Jarren Advincula gave Cal its second run and a 2-0 lead.

Winning pitcher Austin Turkington (1-0) tossed 3.0 scoreless one-hit innings and struck out four over a career-high 62 pitches before David Shaw made his Cal debut. The former Rice and Texas lefty struck out the side in scoreless fourth and fifth innings before allowing a solo homer with one out in the top of the sixth to Junhyuk Kwon for the Wolf Pack's only run. Shaw got out of his final inning without any further damage and finished with a career-high seven strikeouts in 3.0 frames.

Cal picked up another run in the bottom of the sixth when Dominic Smaldino walked with one out and scored on a Jacob French double that was hit first hit at Cal.

Spencer Dessart stranded a runner at third in the top of the seventh before the Bears blew the game open with an eight-run bottom of the frame. Campbell reached on an error to start the rally and scored the first run of the inning on an RBI single by Moutzouridis to give Cal a 4-1 lead. Max Handron then singled home a pair of runs to make it 6-1 and scored on an RBI single by French two batters later. Pinch-runner Elijah Clayton scored the fifth run of the inning on a wild pitch to put the Bears ahead 8-1 before Campbell's three-run blast capped the rally.

Cal tacked on three more runs in the bottom of the eighth when Ethan Kodama tripled home Moutzouridis and Smaldino before scoring the final run on an error on the attempt to throw him out at third base.

Cal finished with 14 hits as five Cal players – French (2-3, 2B, RBI), Gwynn (2-3, 2B), Moutzouridis (2-4, HR, 2 RBI), Handron (2-4, 2 RBI) and Advincula (2-5, 2B, RBI) – picked up two each. Handron's first hit was the 100th of his Cal career.

Five Cal pitchers – Turkington (3.0 IP, 1 H, 2 BB, 4 SO), Shaw (3.0 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 7 SO), Dessart (1.2 IP, 2 BB, 2 SO) and Tucker Bougie (1.1 IP, 1 H, 2 SO) – combined for 15 strikeouts.

"We played great," head coach Mike Neu said. "We pitched well and that kept us in the game early, then once our offense got comfortable we had some great at bats and got a chance to separate … It was a team effort. A lot of guys contributed which is always fun to see."

"It took us a while to get comfortable but once we did, we didn't let up," Campbell added.

Cal and Nevada return to Stu Gordon Stadium for the second contest of a four-game set on Saturday. First pitch is at 2 p.m. on ACCNX/ESPN+.