Stanford, CA (U-WIRE) -- On Friday afternoon, the No. 24 Stanford baseball team (27-16, 8-6 Pacific-10 Conference) played its game: solid pitching from the start, score first, score often. The squad toppled California (30-21, 10-10) in Berkeley 7-5.

Unfortunately for the Cardinal, the Golden Bears played their game on Saturday afternoon, winning the contest 2-1 in the 11th inning on a suicide squeeze.

The Pac-10 series will be decided today at 2:30 p.m., with yesterday's rubber match postponed due to weather.

The weekend's second game was highlighted by arguably the strongest, most controlled start of the season for junior lefthander Mark Romanczuk.

Romanczuk, in only his second Saturday start of the season, tossed nine scoreless innings - his third nine-inning effort of the season - despite striking out only two batters.

"I probably had the best command that I've had all season," Romanczuk said in a release.

Cal starter Eric Dworkis put together a stellar pitching outing to match Romanczuk's. The senior transfer from Gonzaga gave up only four hits in a scoreless first nine innings

The hurlers gave way to a bit of scoring in the 10th inning, when freshman Michael Taylor and junior Chris Minaker hit a pair of two-out doubles off of Dworkis to score the game's first run.

Cal answered in the bottom of the inning when the leadoff batter singled, was bunted over to second and scored two base hits later, with junior Cardinal closer Matt Manship on the mound. With the bases loaded and one out freshman reliever Nolan Gallagher entered the game and struck out two straight Cal batters to take the game to an 11th frame.

The game ended in heartbreaking fashion in the 11th. After the Cardinal went down quickly in the top half of the inning, Cal got things going right away in the bottom half. A double and two intentional walks loaded up the bases for the Golden Bears with no outs. Blake Holler came in to relieve Nolan Gallagher - who eventually took the loss - and allowed the bunt back up the middle that scored the game-winner. The bunt was put down by Travis Howell, who sacrificed three times in the Bears' 10-4 win over the Cardinal last month.

"This a tough pill to swallow, but it is baseball and that's they way it goes," Romanczuk said. "The great part about baseball is that we have a chance to come back tomorrow, get after it and take the series."

Stanford head coach Mark Marquess, who coached in his 1800th game at Stanford last Monday, can add another to the list of great pitchers' duels he has seen in his 29 years at the helm.

"This was a great college baseball game, but unfortunately we came out on the short end," Marquess said. "Both starting pitchers were fantastic."

Junior Jeff Gilmore also put together an impressive outing on the mound on Friday afternoon, tossing seven innings without giving up an earned run.

Trailing 7-0, the Bears put together a five-run seventh inning as the result of a series of uncharacteristic slip-ups on defense. The left side of the infield combined for three errors, which resulted in five unearned runs on the scoreboard.

The Cardinal provided steady smatterings of run support to back Gilmore's effort, including a home run each from junior John Hester, sophomore Adam Sorgi and Taylor.

Stanford will make up the rained-out game tomorrow at Berkeley before traveling to Santa Clara on Tuesday night.

(C) 2004 The Stanford Daily via U-WIRE