CS Fullerton Is Left to Try and Come Back : College Series: The Titans lose to top-ranked Miami, 4-3, and now must beat Florida State again.

The defensive specialist couldn’t come up with a key play. An offense built for speed spun its wheels and ran into two outs. And a team that has feasted on left-handed pitchers all season finally ran into one it couldn’t digest.

For Cal State Fullerton, this all added up to a 4-3 College World Series loss to Miami before 15,999 rain-soaked fans in Rosenblatt Stadium.

The defeat dropped the Titans (43-16) into the loser’s bracket, where they will play Florida State in an elimination game Tuesday at 1 p.m. Fullerton beat Florida State, 7-2, in a first-round game Friday.

Top-ranked and top-seeded Miami, which improved to 55-8 and 2-0 in the Series, has two days off before meeting the Fullerton-Florida State winner Wednesday at 2 p.m.

For the Titans to have any chance of winning a third national championship, they have to beat the Seminoles once and the Hurricanes twice before Saturday’s title game.

“It can’t be any harder than 1979, when we lost our first game and won the next five for the title, or 1984, when we lost our second game and came back to beat Miami, Arizona State, Oklahoma State and Texas for the championship,” Fullerton Coach Augie Garrido said.

“No one gave us a snowball’s chance in hell in ‘84, but as long as we have an opportunity, we’re going to fight to keep our uniforms on.”

Sunday night, Miami pitcher Jeff Alkire (14-2) gave up only three hits in seven innings and reliever Danny Graves yielded only one. Two of the hits were infield singles, and the Titans hit only three balls to the outfield all evening.

Alkire walked nine, but there was a method to his wildness. Hardly overpowering, he mixed his fastball and breaking ball and the Titans hit many pitches outside the strike zone.

And when Fullerton did hit the ball hard, it was often right at someone. Miami turned three double plays and set a nine-inning College World Series-game record with 22 assists.

“How do you think major leaguers feel when they go against Tommy John or Frank Tanana?” said Garrido, whose Titans are now 8-2 against left-handers. “He took our hitting game away from us. He walked a lot of guys to do it, but he was effective.

“He wasn’t wild. Nine walks is misleading. He missed spots, but he never missed inside the strike zone. He either got the corners he wanted or just missed them. It was a tough battle.”

Trailing, 4-1, in the bottom of the eighth, Fullerton rallied with two runs on Jason Moler’s RBI fielder’s choice and Steve Sisco’s bloop RBI single. But pinch-hitter Tony Banks grounded into a double play to end the inning, and Graves retired the Titans in order in the ninth.