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Titans, battling to stay alive, lead Bruins

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Times Staff Writer

Cal State Fullerton, fighting for its postseason life, was three outs away from fending off elimination as the Titans took an 8-5 lead over UCLA in the bottom of the eighth inning of their NCAA regional game Sunday night at Goodwin Field in Fullerton.

Fullerton, which has won five consecutive regionals, needed to defeat UCLA to force a deciding rematch between the teams tonight. UCLA needed a victory to close out the regional and advance to the super regionals next week against the winner of today’s game between Stanford and Pepperdine.

The Titans did most of their damage early, striking for five runs in the first two innings, then tacked on another in the fourth for a 6-2 lead and had their offense so in sync that they didn’t even need an official at-bat to score their first of four runs in the second inning.

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But UCLA chipped away with solo home runs by Brady Dolan in the fourth and Casey Haerther in the seventh and a two-run fifth that knocked out Fullerton starter Daniel Renken. That helped thin the pitching staff for the Titans, who are trying to come out of the loser’s bracket and would need to win three times over two days to advance.

“This team hasn’t done anything real easy the whole year, so it doesn’t shock me that we have to do this,” Fullerton Coach Dave Serrano said before the game. “We still have the ammunition to get this done.”

UCLA starter Gavin Brooks looked little like the pitcher who dominated in the postseason last year, when he gave up only three runs in two complete games.

He lasted only 1 1/3 innings Sunday night and gave up four runs. He walked three batters, hit two with pitches, had three wild pitches and committed a throwing error on a pickoff attempt.

In the second inning, Fullerton’s Dustin Garneau reached on catcher’s interference, then Brooks hit Joe Scott and Josh Fellhauer moved up the runners with a sacrifice bunt.

Christian Colon then walked and UCLA Coach John Savage pulled Brooks with the bases loaded and the score tied at 1-1. Reliever Matt Drummond balked in a run on his first pitch, giving the Titans a run without recording an official at-bat.

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Erik Komatsu followed with a two-run single, and Jared Clark doubled home Komatsu to give Fullerton a 5-1 lead.

“When we got placed in this regional, we knew you have to get through Fullerton to get to Omaha,” Savage said after his team stayed in the winner’s bracket with a victory Saturday night.

“This tournament is far from being over. We’re not celebrating.”

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peter.yoon@latimes.com

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ON THE WEB

To get the final score of the UCLA-Cal State Fullerton game, go to

latimes.com/sports.

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