Bears defense leads way with two pick-sixes

BERKELEY >> It felt like it was over before the Cal offense took the field.

Which was a good thing for the Golden Bears.

Cal scored twice on picksixes before its struggling offense even ran a play and the Bears took advantage of five Colorado turnovers to claim a 33-21 victory at Memorial Stadium on Saturday night.

The Bears led 24-7 at halftime despite having just 91 yards and three first downs. Cal finished with 211 yards and had converted only one of 17 third-down opportunities.

Warts and all, the defense and special teams made sure the Bears (74, 4-4 Pac-12) won for the fourth time in their past five games.

“That’s kind of where we are right now,” Cal coach Justin Wilcox said. “It’s not always going to be pretty.”

Cornerback Elijah Hicks scored untouched on a 34yard interception return on the game’s third play from scrimmage and, after the ensuing kickoff, safety Ashtyn Davis picked off Steven Montez again and raced 35 yards into the end zone for a 14-0 lead with 13:04 left in the opening quarter.

“Two huge plays that were the difference in the game,” Wilcox said. “That was pretty obvious.”

Two fumbled punts — by different CU return men — were recovered by Quentin Tartabull and Daniel Scott, respectively, and led to 10 more Cal points by the midpoint of the second quarter. Yep, all 24 points the Bears scored in the first half came courtesy of Colorado giveaways and just 27 yards of offense by the home team.

Next up on Saturday is Stanford (7-4, 5-3), which will visit for the 121st Big Game at Berkeley, in a rescheduled game.

Cal, which has lost eight straight to the Cardinal, can finish with a winning Pac-12 record for the first time since 2009 by ending that streak.

At the end of this one, Cal’s student section began chanting, “We want The Axe.”

“I started thinking about it as soon as they started chanting,” running back Patrick Laird said. “We want it just as bad as everybody else.”

Here are three takeaways from Cal’s victory:

The defense delivers THE SCORE

CAL 33, COLORADO 21 Up next: Stanford (7-4, 5-3 Pac-12) at Cal (7-4, 4-4) Dec. 1, noon,

Pac-12 Network

again: Cal has now allowed no more than 21 points in five consecutive games and has accounted for five touchdowns this season.

But it was wide receiver Vic Wharton III who predicted the early game heroics by the secondary.

“While we were watching the defense,” wide receiver Moe Ways recalled, “Vic Wharton said, ‘I feel like the ‘D’ is going to get a touchdown on the first possession.’ And it happened. Then he said, ‘It’d be crazy if they did it again.”

Linebackers Evan Weaver and Jordan Kunaszyk, who entered the game among the nation’s leading tacklers, did their thing. Weaver had a career-best 19 tackles and Kunaszyk contributed 14. That’s 33 tackles on 76 CU plays.

The Bears averaged just 2.5 yards per rush. Garbers, who led the way with 47 rushing yards and threw two touchdowns, was off target with his throws at times.

But the Bears had no turnovers. “We took care of the ball,” Wilcox said. “We needed to sustain some drives better. I think we all know that.”

Cal has won four of five because it has just four turnovers over that stretch.