CAL STATE FULLERTON NOTEBOOK : Titans Shake Slow Start, Look to Get Jump on Big West

Augie Garrido has his baseball team well-positioned to make a run at another Big West Conference championship.

The defending conference-champion Titans, 3-9 after their first 12 games, have won 12 of their past 15 to improve to 15-12 entering Thursday’s conference-opening series at UC Irvine.

Though they’ve climbed out of their early season rut, if the Titans don’t win the Big West and earn an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament, the slow start might come back to haunt them in May.

“We’ve put our at-large position (to the NCAA tournament) in jeopardy,” Garrido said. “By starting off the way we did, it puts added pressure on us to win the league. We’ve lost a lot of games to a lot of teams.”

So have other Big West teams. An encouraging sign for Fullerton is that none of the other conference favorites, Cal State Long Beach (23-9), UC Santa Barbara (19-9-1) and Fresno State (18-11), has been overly impressive, so the title appears up for grabs.

Garrido believes if Titan pitchers can improve in the coming weeks as the hitters have improved in recent weeks, Fullerton will contend for the championship.

Four veterans--shortstop Phil Nevin, second baseman Steve Sisco, catcher Matt Hattabaugh and designated hitter Frank Charles--have led the Titans offensively.

Nevin is batting .354 with 11 doubles, two homers and 24 runs batted in; Sisco is hitting .343 with nine doubles and 13 RBIs; Hattabaugh is batting .337 with 19 RBIs, and Charles is hitting .333 with 10 doubles, four triples, two homers and 29 RBIs.

But Fullerton’s surge has coincided with the addition of Jason Moler, a junior transfer who was released by Illinois in late February. The former Esperanza High School standout has added some punch to the Titan lineup and helped stabilize the infield.

The third baseman is batting .292 in 13 games, and his presence has allowed Garrido to move third baseman Trevor Rush to first base and Charles from first to designated hitter.

Rush is having a solid offensive season with a .273 batting average and .432 on-base percentage, and Charles has been Fullerton’s hottest hitter of late. The senior has 10 hits, including two home runs and five doubles, and 14 RBIs in the past four games.

“The switch has had a positive effect on three people,” Garrido said. “Jason plays third with more experience than Trevor, and Trevor has more range than Frank at first, so that improved our infield. And Frank is now in a role he’s more familiar with.”

Bob Hofman, who two weeks ago resigned after one season as an assistant to basketball Coach John Sneed, has accepted a job as an assistant to Fresno State Coach Gary Colson.

Hofman, 40, previously a head coach at Eastern Washington from 1987-90, fills a position on the Bulldog staff that has been vacant since last fall, when Scott Duncan resigned.

Hofman has never worked for Colson, but he developed a relationship with him when Hofman was the head coach at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colo., from 1983-87 and Colson was at nearby University of New Mexico.

Colson, the former Pepperdine coach, also recruited Hofman out of Pasadena High School in 1969.

“We’ve shared a lot of thoughts and ideas over the years and I’ve always respected him as a coach,” Hofman said. “I’m real excited about this opportunity.”

Fullerton’s hopes of a strong showing in last weekend’s Pacific-10 Conference men’s gymnastics championships at UCLA were dashed when Bill Barham, the Titans’ best all-around performer, injured his ankle Friday during the meet’s second event.

Attempting a double-back somersault, full-twisting dismount off the high bar, Barham turned his right ankle upon landing and fell on his back. Even with the automatic .5 deduction for falling, the senior scored a 9.25 on the event.

Fullerton Coach Dick Wolfe said Barham suffered strained ligaments and will be questionable for the NCAA West Regional on April 5-6 and the NCAA Championships on April 19-20.

Wolfe said Barham’s absence cost the Titans at least 10 points in the team score. UCLA won the meet with 285.10 points, and Fullerton was eighth with 268.55. An additional 10 points would have elevated the Titans to fourth place.

“The team didn’t act down after the injury and neither did I,” Wolfe said. “But it took the wind out of our sails.”

New Titans: Joe Randolph, a 5-9, 165-pound wide receiver from Taft College, has signed a letter of intent to play football at Fullerton, Titan Coach Gene Murphy said.

Murphy said that Randolph, a Black Mountain, N.C., native who is a sprinter on the Taft track team, has been timed in the 100-meter dash at 10.38 seconds.

Danielle Bryce, a 6-foot forward from Mills High School in Millbrae, Calif., has made an oral commitment to play basketball at Fullerton and will sign a letter of intent in April.

Women’s basketball Coach Maryalyce Jeremiah received two letters of intent during last fall’s early signing period, from John W. North (Riverside) center Kisa Hughes and Buena (Ventura) point guard Lianne Ishikawa.

Titan Notes

The Titan Athletic Foundation is sponsoring a Western Casino Night from 7 to 11:30 p.m. Saturday at the Doubletree Hotel in Orange. Price ($50 individual, $90 couple) includes dinner, entertainment, $100 in free chips per person and a door prize ticket. All proceeds go to the Fullerton student-athlete scholarship fund. . . . The TAF has set April 29 as the day it will officially kick off its two-year, $2.3 million athletic department fund drive. A kickoff party will be held that evening at the Marriott Hotel on the Fullerton campus, and TAF Executive Director Walt Bowman said the first two months of the drive will concentrate on renewing past pledges. . . . Former Laker guard Gail Goodrich, former UCLA forward Lynn Shackelford and former Cleveland Indians pitcher Jim (Mudcat) Grant will participate in the fourth annual Cal State Fullerton Hispanic Golf Classic, scheduled for 9 a.m. April 5 at the Rancho San Joaquin Golf Course in Irvine. Entry fee ($100) includes green fee, cart, shirts, hats, a gift package and dinner at Tlaquepaque Restaurant in Placentia. Proceeds benefit the school’s Hispanic Scholarship Fund and will be matched by the National Hispanic Scholarship Fund, Inc. and the Cal State University Chancellor’s Office up to $10,000. For information, call Silas Abrego, director of Student Academic Services, at 773-2484. . . . Greg West, who caught 18 passes for 300 yards and one touchdown last season, has been dismissed from the football team because of academic problems, Coach Gene Murphy said. . . . Tiffany Boyd, who won four games and saved another last week, was named Big West Conference softball pitcher of the week, and Mich DeBree, who hit .381 with five RBIs in six games, was named conference co-field player of the week with Chris Parris of Nevada Las Vegas.