If the Arizona baseball team hopes to play in the NCAA Regionals for the second year in a row, it has its work cut out for it.

The Wildcats (25-20-1, 7-8 Pacific 10 Conference) begin a three-game series Friday at 7 p.m. at Sancet Field against top-ranked Stanford.

The series continues tomorrow at 7 p.m. and concludes Sunday at 1 p.m.

The Cardinal will come into Tucson as the nation's No. 1 team, which will make head coach Andy Lopez's stated goal of taking two of three games from every series the rest of the year that much more difficult.

Lopez has said the Wildcats will need to finish with 13 Pac-10 wins to be considered for postseason play, and that means winning six out of their last nine games, which includes series against the Pac-10's top two teams - Stanford and Arizona State.

Arizona has a bit of an advantage, though, with both of those series being played in Tucson.

The team showed signs of gaining momentum last weekend against UCLA.

The Wildcats avenged an earlier series loss to UCLA by taking two of three from the Bruins. Arizona beat UCLA 11-2 Sunday and 20-9 Saturday, and lost 7-3 Friday.

Sophomore John Meloan (5-0) threw a two-hit complete game in the series finale Sunday to earn the 11-2 victory for Arizona, and senior third baseman Moises Duran added a pair of home runs to pace the Wildcat offense.

The only two hits allowed by Meloan were Bruin home runs.

At one point, he retired 18 straight batters while striking out six.

Arizona got its biggest offensive production of the season with a 20-9 victory Saturday in Los Angeles.

The Wildcats combined for 20 runs on 14 hits, including five home runs.

Junior Kevin Guyette (6-5) earned the win for Arizona, throwing six innings while striking out six.

The Wildcats dropped the series' opening game 7-3 Friday to the Bruins.

Junior pitcher Koley Kolberg picked up the loss, giving up six runs on 10 hits in six innings of work.

He struggled through the game's first inning, allowing four runs.

Sophomore first baseman Jordan Brown continued to torment UCLA. He hit five home runs in the six season games against the Bruins to earn Pac-10 Player of the Week honors.

Those three games were the final nonconference games of the year for Arizona.