Fullerton’s Power Outage Ends as Titans Rout Arizona State

Cal State Fullerton’s baseball team had looked anything but impressive during the first two games of a three-game series against Arizona State over the weekend.

No. 3 Fullerton had lost to the No. 4 Sun Devils by a total of 15 runs in the two games. Fullerton’s offense was expected to stall one more time Sunday night when the Titans faced ASU ace Doug Henry, who opened the season on Tuesday with a 5-inning, no-hit, 10-strikeout performance against Lubbick Christian.

But Fullerton, the NCAA defending champion, turned on the power with four home runs and 21 hits to send Henry and four other Arizona State pitchers reeling. The Titans eventually won, 15-3, in the conclusion of a nonconference series in Packard Stadium at Tempe, Ariz.

Bob Mellano and Jose Mota both hit three-run homers and Allan Stankiewicz and Kevin Reimer added solo blasts to lead the Titans (3-3).

Fullerton jumped on ASU’s Henry for three runs in the second inning on Stankiewicz’s homer plus RBI singles by Mota and Shane Turner. Mellano’s pinch-hit homer preceded Blaine Larker’s two-run double in the third inning for a 7-0 lead.

Reimer’s homer in the fourth made it 8-0, and Fullerton took an 11-0 lead in the fifth on Reimer’s RBI single and Stankiewicz’s two-run single. Stankiewicz ended with four hits.

Arizona State (5-4) got its only runs off Titan left-hander Mike Belanger (2-0) on Keith Bennett’s fifth-inning sacrifice fly and Mike Devereaux’s RBI single plus a balk in the seventh.

Mota’s homer, his third of season and second in two nights, came in the eighth as he totaled four RBIs. Mota, who is batting .625, hit only one home run last season. Andy Neito’s RBI single closed out the Fullerton scoring in the ninth. The nationally televised game by ESPN took 3 hours, 28 minutes.

Fullerton plays at USC on Tuesday night.