USC defeats California to advance to Pac-12 baseball tournament final

Freshman Brayden Dowd hit his first career home run and finished with four RBIs, Josh Blum threw two innings of scoreless relief for his 10th save and USC beat California 7-4 on Friday to earn its ninth straight victory and a spot in the Pac-12 tournament championship game.

USC (31-27), which advanced past pool play for the first time in program history Thursday, will play either Stanford or top-seeded Arizona for the final Pac-12 title on Saturday.

California (36-19) had the bases loaded with no outs in the third inning before USC starter Tyler Stromsborg struck out Rodney Green Jr. and got Peyton Schulze to hit into a double play.

USC went ahead in the fourth when Dowd sent a three-run shot over the right-field wall for a 3-2 lead. Dowd added an RBI groundout in the sixth.

Cal tied the score 4-4 with two runs in the seventh, but USC put a pair on in the bottom half before Austin Overn brought one home with a sacrifice fly.

USC added two insurance runs when Dean Carpentier tripled in a run in the eighth and scored on a single by Ryan Jackson.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times .