By Matt Kawahara Daily Californian

April 22, 2008

Berkeley, CA (UWIRE) -- Two days ago, the No. 7 Cal baseball team pulled out a dramatic win over Washington with its first walkoff hit of the year, courtesy of first baseman David Cooper.

Next weekend, the Bears will play their most important Pac-10 series to date when they travel to the desert to tangle with the prolific offense of No. 6 Arizona State.

And sandwiched in the middle of these two pivotal conference series is today's 2:30 p.m. game against Cal Poly at Evans Diamond, another Tuesday afternoon matchup against another non-conference team.

Or as senior second baseman Josh Satin sees it:

"Another day, another way to get another win.

"At this point, we just need to keep racking up wins," Satin said. "I'm not going to say that this game (today) is as important as the games next weekend, because they're not. But that doesn't mean they're not important."

All year, Cal (26-10-2) has stressed the need to take care of business in midweek games after it was snubbed from the NCAA Tournament in 2007 despite putting together a 29-win season. Today's game provides an opportunity for the Bears to further pad an already impressive resume before leaving for Tempe, where baseballs have a way of exploding off of aluminum bats and the Sun Devils possess a gaudy home record of 26-3.

"We have to win our midweek games because we don't have any more non-conference weekends," Cooper said. "So outside of conference, those are our only chances to get more wins on our resume. They're definitely very important."

Cooper is the only Bears hitter who has any kind of experience against the Mustangs, as he faced them two years ago while playing for Cal State Fullerton. Cal hasn't played a game against Cal Poly since Feb. 9, 1995.

The Mustangs were held in fairly high regard before the season began, collecting enough votes in the Big West preseason poll to be projected to finish in third place in the conference and ahead of UC Irvine�-one of eight teams that reached the College World Series in 2007. Ad: Daily Cal Sports Blog

Though they didn't face each other, both Cal Poly and the Bears participated in the University of San Diego Tournament at the beginning of the season and played the same four opponents in the tournament. Cal finished the weekend 3-1 and jumped out to a 12-1-1 record, eventually rising to No. 5 in the national polls.

The Mustangs took the opposite route, leaving San Diego with only one win and crawling out to a 9-17 start. Cal Poly has yet to get its record back to .500, but the Mustangs have won eight of their last 10 games-including taking two of three from UC Davis last weekend-and have a team batting average of .312 that comes in just under the Bears' mark of .318.

"We've gotten bit by teams that we've lost to in the past and shouldn't have lost to (in midweek games)," Cooper said. "I think that's happened to us enough that we can't go in and take anything lightly. And they definitely have the talent to come out and win some games."

Both Satin and Cooper-who have combined for as many home runs (28) as the entire Cal Poly offense-also stressed the importance of preserving the momentum gained from Sunday's dramatic victory over the Huskies as the team prepares for Arizona State.

"When we go down to A-State we're going to have to play very well," Cooper said. "That's also why I think tomorrow's important, to just kind of keep things rolling."

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