CAL STATE FULLERTON NOTEBOOK : Titans Get in Swing of Things at Arizona

The center-field fence at Fullerton’s Amerige Park didn’t fare so well over the weekend, collapsing in gusty winds.

The fences at Arizona’s Frank Sancet Field took a beating, too, but Mother Nature had nothing to do with that calamity. The Cal State Fullerton baseball team did.

Talk about razing Arizona. The Titans pounded the Wildcats for 53 runs and 61 hits, including seven home runs, to win two of three games. After losing, 19-15, Thursday, Fullerton came back to win Friday (22-6) and Saturday (16-5).

Third baseman Phil Nevin led the barrage, going nine for 13 (.692) with three homers, 11 runs and seven runs batted in. Nate Rodriguez, billed as a good-fielding, light-hitting shortstop, was eight for 10 with five runs and five RBIs.

Jason Moler was seven for 13 with a homer and five RBIs, D.C. Olsen was five for eight with three RBIs, Tony Banks five for nine with four RBIs, Jim Betzsold three for six with four RBIs and a homer and Bret Hemphill had eight RBIs.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said George Horton, Fullerton’s associate head coach. “I’ve had teams score a lot of runs in one or two games, but to hit balls extremely hard all over the park for three days straight, off high-caliber pitching, that was something.”

Conditions in Tucson were ripe for high-scoring games. Balls usually travel well in Arizona’s warm, thin air, but the wind was blowing out, and the infield grass and dirt were especially hard and fast.

Still, Titan Coach Augie Garrido was impressed with the Titans’ offensive persistence.

“Sometimes when a guy hits a home run, his next at-bat is terrible because he tries to hit the ball even harder,” Garrido said. “Some positive things can actually distract players in a negative way, and these things interfere with your ability to repeat the fundamentals of hitting.

“But the best thing we accomplished was to maintain the discipline to stay focused, repeat the fundamentals and work habits, and a major part of that is attitude.”

Another major part of that is knowing you have to score a lot of runs to win.

“After the first game, we went out the next day thinking no lead was safe in that park,” Nevin said. “We had to make sure they couldn’t catch us.”

Help Wanted: A classified ad in the Feb. 12 issue of NCAA News, in which Fullerton states it is seeking applications for head and assistant coaches in all sports, has fueled speculation that the school is seeking a new men’s basketball coach.

Titan Coach John Sneed’s three-year contract expires at the end of the season, and he has not been offered a new contract or been given a vote of confidence by Athletic Director Bill Shumard.

Some in the Fullerton athletic department believe the school is camouflaging a preliminary search for a basketball coach by soliciting applicants for all sports.

Most jobs have to be posted at least 30 days before being filled, and any candidate must be cleared through affirmative action before being hired. Is it a coincidence that the ad was placed about 30 days before the end of the basketball season?

Shumard says yes.

“I was advised by Rosamaria Gomez-Amaro, our director of affirmative action, to run that ad once a quarter to keep our resume files current in a number of areas,” Shumard said. “It’s good business practice to encourage people to be interested in working here.

“My word to John is that we’d evaluate his situation at the end of the season, and that still stands. I’m just trying to be a prudent manager across the board and do things correctly within university standards.”

Sneed, whose teams have gone 53-57 in three-plus seasons, preferred to direct questions concerning his future to Shumard.

“It’s something I have no control over,” said Sneed, a Titan assistant for eight years before becoming head coach in 1988. “I’ve spent more than a quarter of my life here--that’s a long time. But I can’t speculate on all the negative things that could happen in life.”

Parting Thoughts: Becky Howlett, who led the Titan volleyball team in kills the past two seasons, said Monday she has orally committed to Washington State.

A preliminary injunction hearing, in which the Fullerton volleyball team is seeking to have the school’s recent decision to drop the program overturned, is scheduled for Thursday in West Orange County Superior Court.

But Howlett and at least three others have decided not to hinge their future playing careers on the court case. Howlett said she will transfer after this semester. Stacey Blackburn and Lisa Parbst will transfer to Utah State, and Angela Lightfoot will transfer to Arkansas State.

“I still have mixed emotions,” said Howlett, a 6-foot-4 sophomore who had 1,281 kills in two seasons. “I don’t like the way I’m leaving, but it’s being done, it happened, and I’m out of here.”

Revenge Factor: Lyndon Campbell, a 134-pound wrestler for the Titans, probably will have a chance to avenge Saturday’s 5-4 loss to Arizona State’s Marco Sanchez in the Pacific-10 Conference championships, scheduled for Friday and Saturday at Oregon.

First-round matches are scheduled to begin at noon Friday, followed by the championship semifinals at 7 p.m. Friday. The championship finals begin at 7:30 p.m. Saturday.

Arizona State is favored to win its eighth consecutive conference title. The top three finishers in each weight class and seven other at-large selections will advance to the NCAA meet, March 19-21 in Oklahoma City.

Titan Notes

Fullerton city employees spent Monday putting back up the center-field fence at Amerige Park, and the field is expected to be ready for Fullerton’s game against Chapman College today. It is the first of 15 consecutive home games for the Titans, who will remain at Amerige Park through March 17. . . . Fullerton freshman Dante Powell, who struggled the first week of the season with only one hit in 11 at-bats, has raised his average to .294 (10 for 34). He has two triples and has scored eight runs. . . . The Titan baseball team will play host to Illinois in a three-game series Friday, Saturday and Sunday. One of Illinois’ top players is former Mater Dei outfielder Larry Sutton, the Big Ten Conference’s second-leading hitter last season with a .434 average, nine homers and 52 RBIs. Sutton, whom Fullerton Coach Augie Garrido recruited during his three years as Illinois coach, currently leads the team with a .444 average. . . . The Titan women’s gymnastics team will compete in Saturday’s UCLA Invitational; the softball team will play in this weekend’s Nevada Las Vegas Spring Fling.