Titans Get Seven in First, Romp, 16-3 : NCAA baseball: Gonzales hits grand slam in 15-hit attack against Old Dominion. Fullerton plays Creighton tonight in the second round.

Old Dominion University began Friday night’s NCAA playoff game against Cal State Fullerton with a blast, but it was the Titans who wound up having all the fun.

After Monarch right fielder Scott Thomson opened the game with a towering home run off James Popoff, the Titans responded with seven runs in the bottom of the first and went on to a 16-3 victory in the first round of the Central Regional at the University of Texas.

Fullerton had five hits in the first and took advantage of four Monarch errors to take a 7-1 lead. The Titans (33-21) added one run in the second and blew the game open with six runs in the fifth, four coming on left fielder Rich Gonzales’ grand slam.

Gonzales led a 15-hit attack with three hits and three runs. Third baseman Phil Nevin added three hits and two runs, and shortstop Kevin Farlow had three hits, two runs and two RBIs.

Popoff (11-4) gave up another home run to Thomson in the fifth inning but allowed only four hits and struck out six before giving way to Tony Fetchel in the eighth.

Fullerton, which stole three bases in the first two innings, will play Creighton, a 9-6 winner over Clemson Friday, in tonight’s second round. Titan left-hander Huck Flener, who has a 7-1 record and 3.78 earned-run average, will start in the 6 p.m. (PDT) game.

“It was our plan to put pressure on them as much as possible,” said Titan Coach Larry Cochell, who coached at Creighton from 1970-71. “We’ve been in more regionals than they have (Fullerton is making its 13th NCAA appearance in the last 16 years; ODU is making its third ever). We wanted to make them play defense and we wanted to start some runners and that worked effectively.”

The Titans hadn’t played in 12 days, since their last regular-season game against San Jose State on May 13, and they played another waiting game Friday, sitting through Texas’ 3 1/2-hour, 9-8 win over Texas Arlington before taking the field against ODU at 9:23 (CDT). That was 1 hour and 23 minutes after the game was scheduled to start.

But the layoff didn’t seem to have any effect on Fullerton.

“We were ready and we came out swinging,” said second baseman Mate Borgogno, who had two hits and scored two runs. “No external things bothered us, as you see by the score and by the way we swung the bats.”

Cochell was extremely pleased with the way the Titans continued to pressure the Monarchs (40-18).

“We’ve been a team of big innings, but our Achilles’ heel has been sitting back after a big inning and not scoring again,” Cochell said. “We did better with that tonight.”

Fullerton didn’t exactly crush the ball off ODU starter Jeff Ware, who lasted 4 1/3 innings. Of the Titans’ five first-inning hits, two rolled through the infield and three never left the infield. Two were Astroturf choppers that Fullerton runners beat out.

But Ware didn’t help himself by committing two errors in the inning. Second baseman Chris Everett also had two errors, as the Titans sent 11 batters to the plate in the first.

Fullerton then flexed its muscles beginning in the second inning when Gonzales lined a double to left field and later scored on a wild pitch.

Gonzales’ grand slam in the fifth, off reliever Doug Stevens, sailed well beyond the 375-foot sign in left-center field, and Farlow and catcher Matt Hattabaugh had hard-hit doubles, in the fifth and sixth innings, respectively. Paul Bunch, who replaced right fielder David Ayala in the sixth, also had a hit and two RBIs.

All of which made Popoff’s job a lot easier.

“It was a relief pitching with a lead--it always is” said Popoff, the sophomore right-hander. “When we got that far ahead, I just tried to stay ahead of the batters.”

Regional Notes

Texas Arlington, seeded sixth in the region, gave top-seeded Texas a good scare in another first-round game. The Longhorns needed two runs in the bottom of the ninth to defeat the sixth-seeded Mavericks, 9-8. Texas Arlington took an early 5-1 lead, but Texas scored four in the third to make it 5-5. The Longhorns scored single runs in the seventh and eighth to take a 7-5 lead, but the Mavericks went ahead, 8-7, with a three-run ninth. Texas then loaded the bases in the bottom of the ninth, and Johnny Walker hit a two-run single to center field to win it. Calvin Murray, a 1989 first-round pick of the Cleveland Indians, tripled and scored in the seventh and knocked in a run with a fielder’s choice in the eighth. Texas Arlington, making its first NCAA playoff appearance, will play Clemson today at 11 a.m. PDT. The loser will be eliminated from the regional.

In the first game Friday, every Creighton starter got at least one hit as the fifth-seeded Bluejays beat second-seeded Clemson, 9-6. Creighton left-hander Dan Smith, projected as a first-round pick in the June draft, went the distance despite giving up 11 hits, including Eric Macrina’s three-run homer in the bottom of the ninth. First baseman Scott Stahoviak had two hits and three runs batted in, and third baseman Pat Mooney had two hits and two RBIs to pace the Bluejays (47-20). Creighton, which has never played in the College World Series, opened a 7-1 lead in the third inning and was not threatened the rest of the way. Clemson fell to 42-22. . . . The Creighton starter for today’s game will be right-hander Mike Heathcott, who has won his last five starts, including victories over nationally ranked Wichita State and Southern Illinois.