Titans Just Swinging in the Rain : College Series: CS Fullerton beats top-seeded Miami again, 8-1, and will play Pepperdine for the national title today.

There were tornado warnings in the Omaha area Friday night, but there will be no Hurricane watch today.

Cal State Fullerton made sure of that, defeating Miami, 8-1, and eliminating the Hurricanes from the College World Series before 14,932 on a rain-slicked, muddy Rosenblatt Stadium field.

The Titans (46-16) will face Pepperdine in today’s 10 a.m. national championship game--the first time in the 46-year history of the CWS that two teams from the same state have played for the title.

Pepperdine (47-11-1) has won all three of its series games, two by shutout, but Fullerton is on a roll of its own, beating top-ranked and top-seeded Miami (55-10) twice in three days to increase its Division I victory total to 800 and gain a shot at its third national championship.

Pepperdine-Fullerton was a heated rivalry from 1975-84, when both played in the old Southern California Baseball Assn., and the teams even met in the 1979 College World Series, with the Titans winning, 8-5, en route to the national championship.

The Waves and Titans had played in nonconference games since 1984 until this year, when no games were scheduled.

“We all have a lot of friends over there, and (Pepperdine first baseman Dan) Melendez and I were roommates (during Team USA tryouts) the last two summers,” said Fullerton third baseman Phil Nevin, who had two doubles and two runs batted in Friday.

“We’ve talked about how we didn’t play this year and said that after the season we should go to some sandlot and play to decide who the best Southern California team was. So why not make it for the national championship?”

Fullerton wouldn’t have made it this far if not for the performance of senior right-hander James Popoff, who braved what Miami Coach Ron Fraser called monsoon conditions to throw a complete-game, seven-hitter and strike out eight.

The Titans scored once during the first inning, twice during the third and twice during the fifth inning, which was halted for 23 minutes because of rain.

When the grounds crew took the tarp off of the field and play resumed, the weather got worse. A hard, steady rain fell from the sixth through ninth innings, but it didn’t seem to affect Popoff. He walked only one and stayed ahead of most batters.

“It wasn’t easy pitching in that stuff, but I tried to stay focused by acting as if the rain wasn’t there,” said Popoff (13-3). “I just put it out of my mind and concentrated on (catcher) Jason Moler’s glove. Working ahead of hitters was the key. If you can get them in a defensive mode, you’re going to win most of the time.”

Fullerton spent much of the evening in an offensive mode. Lead-off batter Jeremy Carr, who entered with two hits in 15 series at-bats, went three for five and drove in a run. Moler had two hits and an RBI, Tony Banks closed Titan scoring with an RBI double in the eighth, and Chris Powell scored two runs.

Miami’s Jeff Alkire, who shut down the Titans in Miami’s 4-3 victory Sunday, was left the game during the third inning.

“I couldn’t believe they continued the game,” said Fraser, who lost the last game of his 30-year coaching career. “The College World Series is the ultimate in college baseball, a real showcase, then to have to subject your players to these kinds of conditions doesn’t seem fair. That’s not to say we would have won in other conditions, but it didn’t seem right.”