By Morris Phillips

From 1-11 to bowl eligible in a year?

Not an easy feat, but the Cal Bears seem to be on the cusp of just that after soaring past Oregon State 45-31 on Saturday night. In what was the biggest night of Cal’s season thus far also was the biggest of junior Daniel Lasco’s college career. Lasco rushed for 180 and three touchdowns to lead the Bears past the Beavers in Corvallis for the first time since 2006.

The Bears improved to 5-4, 3-4 on the season, ending a three-game losing streak, and need one more win to gain bowl eligibility. Cal finishes with a road contest at USC on November 13, then home games against Stanford and BYU.

The Bears rolled up 564 yards in total offense with 339 of those coming in the first half, which ended with Cal leading 20-10. While the Cal offense kicked into gear early, OSU, led by record-setting quarterback Sean Mannion, sputtered. The Bears couldn’t get the ball into the end zone however, and the Beavers, who didn’t cross midfield offensively until early in the second quarter, led briefly 7-3 with 14:18 remaining before halftime.

The first of Lasco’s three scores followed with the Woodland, TX junior taking it in from 14 yards out to cap a 10-play drive and give Cal a 10-7 lead. Lasco struck again later in the second with a 21-yard run and score that put the Bears up 17-10. Lasco had 127 of 180-yard rushing total in the first half.

Cal forced OSU to punt in their first possession of the second half, and then fashioned a 9-play drive that ended with Vic Enwere’s 19-yard run that put Cal up 27-10.

But that’s when the Beavers made a stand, scoring touchdowns on three consecutive possessions to lead 31-27 with 12:02 remaining. In the run, Mannion became the Pac-12’s career passing leader with 12,454 passing yards, breaking the mark established by USC’s Matt Barkley in 2012.

But Mannion went from record-setter to turnover-prone when he was picked by Cal’s Caleb Coleman in Oregon State territory with 7:48 remaining and Cal leading 34-31. That set up James Langford’s 47-yard field goal in a run that saw Cal score the game’s final 18 points to win going away.

The Bears showed what a Sonny Dykes’ Bear Raid attack can do by running 94 offensive plays, racking up 34 first downs and committing no turnovers.   Dykes would prefer his offenses run at least 100 plays and coming close seemed to wear down Oregon State’s defense with two contributors along their defensive front, Lavonte Barnett and Jaswha James, out due to injuries.

Cal had dropped six of seven to Oregon State, including last year’s embarrassing 49-17 drubbing in Berkeley.