The Arizona baseball team recovered from two straight losses to scrape out a 12-10 victory against UCLA yesterday in the third game of the weekend road series.

The Wildcats (22-10, 3-3 Pacific-10 Conference) brought their conference record back to even with yesterday's win over the Bruins (16-16, 2-1).

Junior outfielder Brian Anderson rapped out three hits in the game, including his team-leading ninth home run, and added four RBIs.

Ironically, junior righty Sean Rierson notched the Wildcats' lone win of the weekend in his first series as a reliever. Rierson was replaced in the rotation by freshman Kevin Guyette (2-1), who started yesterday's game and lasted four innings, allowing six hits and three runs in a no decision. Rierson (5-1) threw two innings of one-run, three-hit relief for his fifth win of the year, moving the reliever into second on the team in wins.

In Saturday's game, Arizona ace Richie Gardner (6-1) ran into trouble for the first time this season, allowing seven runs on 10 hits in 4.1 innings to post the first blemish on his season record. The junior, who was named last week's Pac-10 Pitcher of the Week, gave up back-to-back homers to Wes Whisler and Billy Susdorf in the fifth.

Whisler (3-4) complemented his offensive performance by stymieing Arizona's bats for most of the game. The defending Pac-10 freshman of the year threw seven innings of near-flawless ball, giving up two hits and walking one.

Arizona mounted a late rally off UCLA reliever Hector Ambriz, putting up four ninth-inning runs behind Richard Mercado's two-run homer, but the surge fell short and the Wildcats lost their second in a row.

Friday, UCLA broke a 4-4 tie with a two-run homer by Brandon Averill to pull away from the Wildcats and claim the victory in the series' first game.

UA reliever Mark Worrell (1-3) gave up the homer in the bottom of the seventh and was tagged with the loss.

Arizona returns to Sancet Field for a weekend series with Miami (Ohio) beginning Friday at 7 p.m.