Joe Wolfinger leads Huskies past Cal, 87-84

BERKELEY, Calif. -- Joe Wolfinger scored a career-high 17 points on a perfect shooting night and Washington snapped a six-game losing streak in the Bay Area with a 87-84 victory over California on Saturday.

Ryan Appleby scored 14 of his 16 points in the first half and Justin Dentmon and Quincy Pondexter added 12 apiece for the Huskies (16-14, 7-10 Pac-10), who hadn't won at Cal or Stanford since beating the Bears 106-73 on March 3, 2005.

Wolfinger, who came in averaging 4.0 points per game, picked up the offensive load after foul trouble limited the playing time for starting big men Jon Brockman and Artem Wallace. He made his all six shots from the field, including four 3-pointers, and surpassed his previous high of 11 points. His 3-pointer with 3:12 remaining have the Huskies an 80-70 lead.

Patrick Christopher and Eric Vierneisel answered with consecutive 3-pointers for the Golden Bears (15-12, 6-10) to end a nearly 5 minute scoreless drought and cut the deficit to four points with 2:11 to go.

Jerome Randle hit another 3 to make it 81-79, but Dentmon hit a hanger in the lane to build the lead back up to four points and the Huskies hung on from there.

Cal honored Vierneisel, DeVon Hardin and Patrick Armstrong before the game as part of Senior Day. Vierneisel had a career-high 20 points, Hardin added 16 points and 18 rebounds and Armstrong played briefly.

This also could have been the final home game for star sophomore Ryan Anderson, who could decide to enter the NBA draft early. Anderson, who has scored more points than any Cal player before the end of his sophomore season, finished with 19 points.

Cal's second-leading Patrick Christopher did not start after bruising his left hip in Thursday's loss to Washington State. Christopher, who is averaging 15.7 points per game, finished with nine points on 3-for-10 shooting.

The Bears have lost five of six and finished the conference season with a 2-7 record at Haas Pavilion. Cal ends the regular-season with a road trip to Los Angeles next weekend.

The Huskies had lost their previous two games and both teams' hopes for an NCAA bid rely on winning the Pac-10 tournament later this month.

There was almost no flow to the game in the second half, as there were 18 fouls called in the first nine minutes. The Huskies were called for seven fouls in the first 4:28 of the second half. But Cal quickly caught up in the foul count and both teams were without a key post player for much of the half.

Brockman went to the bench for Washington with his fourth foul with 16:07 left in the game and Hardin went out with four fouls for Cal less than 3 minutes later.

The teams combined to hit four 3-pointers in a 44-second span late in the first half, with Wolfinger and Ryan Appleby connecting for Washington and Randle and Vierneisel hitting for Cal. That was part of a high-scoring finish to the half as the Huskies outscored the Bears 23-17 in the final 5 minutes of the half to take a 49-44 lead at the break.