On a cold and rainy Friday evening, Cougar baseball fell to University of California 13-6.

“We battled. We came back and got what we needed but it just got out of hand,” Head Coach Marty Lees said.

Cal senior pitcher Matt Ladrech picked up his fifth win of the season. Ladrech pitched six and one-third innings, struck out six batters, while giving up five runs.

WSU sophomore pitcher Issac Mullins gathered his fourth loss on the year. He pitched just two innings and gave up six earned runs and five hits.

Lees said Mullins did not have a good performance.

“Issac’s much better than that,” Lees said. “If he got an out, had some ground balls, it would have been a little different.”

WSU junior infielder Justin Harrer hit a solo homerun on the first pitch in the bottom of the first inning to give the Cougars an early 1-0 lead.

The Golden Bears unloaded on the Cougars in the top of the second, scoring six runs on five base hits. California sophomore right fielder Max Flower hit a three-run triple to ignite the scoring.

“In that second inning, that’s what hurt us,” Lees said.

Cal was not finished. In the top of the sixth inning, junior center fielder Tanner Dodson hit an RBI single to start off a four-run inning to make the score 10-1.

The Cougars bounced back in the bottom half of the inning, scoring one run to make the score 10-2. Harrer led off with a double to begin the inning, which set up a sacrifice fly by senior outfielder JJ Hancock that scored Harrer.

WSU picked up three more runs in the bottom of the seventh to bring the score to 10-5.

“We had a good plan against [Ladrech], but we didn’t follow it quite that [way],” Lees said. “Until as we got into those middle innings and then we started performing as we can.”

California made up for giving up three runs in the bottom of the seventh by scoring three runs of their own in the top of the eighth.

WSU would get one run back to narrow the lead to 13-6 in the bottom of the 8^th inning but it wasn’t enough as the Cougars fell to the Golden Bears.

WSU will face Cal in the first game of a doubleheader at 1 p.m. today at Bailey-Brayton Field.

Lees said the team needs to take the next step if they want to beat California.

“We gotta come in with a little more intent in everything that we do,” Lees said. “A little bit more conviction, a little bit more pride.”