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California surge torches Washington

Feb 6, 2009 - 7:23 AM BERKELEY, California (Ticker) -- California was being rocked by a Washington spurt. Suddenly, the Golden Bears were rolling to an 86-71 Pac-10 triumph on Thursday.

The 25th-ranked Huskies used an 11-0 run to take a 43-34 advantage early in the second half and seemed to be in control.

The Golden Bears, however, got consecutive baskets by Jordan Wilkes and were off and running.

Jerome Randle had 11 of his 21 points during the game-changing, 26-10 burst. Wilkes added eight of his 14.

Elston Turner hit a shot from beyond the arc to cut the deficit to 62-58, but that was as close as Washington (16-6, 7-3 Pac-10) would get.

Cal (17-6, 6-4) went on a 9-1 run to open a 71-59 lead with six minutes left on back-to-back baskets by Theo Robertson, who had 21 points.

"They were an absolute machine in the second half," Washington coach Lorenzo Romar told the Seattle Times of the Bears, who enjoyed a 56-39 scoring advantage after halftime.

Randle passed the 1,000-point mark for his career in the contest and knew he had to step it up after intermission.

"Coach (Mike Montgomery) told us the only way to beat them is to go get the ball," the 5-10 junior said. "I knew I was trying to be aggressive."

Randle liked the confidence his coach displayed.

"We just picked up the energy," Randle said of the second-half onslaught. "And we tried to pick up the defense and tried to keep the ball out of (Justin) Dentmon's hands and (Isaiah) Thomas' hands. We did a great job of that. And (Quincy) Pondexter had to dribble the ball and I'm pretty sure he wasn't used to that.

Pondexter led the Huskies with 21 points.

Washington completes a four-game road swing on Sunday at Stanford, where it hasn't won since 1993. The Huskies have lost two of three thus far, with their only win coming against then-No. 14 Arizona State. The unranked foes have provided the problems on the journey.

Pondexter and the freshman Thomas combined for 14 of Washington's 22 baskets. The Huskies shot 22-of-62 (36 percent) from the field. They were only 2-of-13 from long distance in an all-around dismal effort.

"This was a little uncharacteristic of this Husky team because we weren't sharing the ball as much as we had been," Romar said after his team had a season-low six assists. "We kind of reverted back to a couple of months ago when we weren't really looking to share it."

Cal, meanwhile, was 35-of-69 from the field, connecting at a 51 percent clip.

The Golden Bears swept the regular-season series, having downed the Huskies, 88-85, in triple overtime on January 10. The teams could meet in the Pac-10 postseason tournament.