Titans Taking Time to Review the Season : Baseball: Cal State Fullerton is emotionally drained after its victory in the regionals. Next stop is the College World Series.

Cal State Fullerton was seeded seventh and will face second-seeded Georgia Tech in the first round of the College World Series on Friday, but the Titans were thinking more about regrouping mentally and physically Tuesday than about the team they will face first in Omaha.

Players and coaches were still feeling drained following an emotion-charged regional championship surge Monday that demanded victories over Memphis State and top-seeded Oklahoma State. Oklahoma State began the tournament ranked third in the nation and constantly was boosted by a vocal home crowd.

“Everyone’s real tired right now,” said George Horton, Titan associate head coach. “That was a lot of tough competition in a span of 12 hours.”

The Titans, however, will have to quickly turn their attention to the first game of what Coach Augie Garrido is calling “Chapter Three” of another highly successful season.

Fullerton will be in a bracket with third-seeded LSU and sixth-seeded Florida State. Top-seeded Miami and eighth-seeded Arizona State will be first-round opponents in the other bracket, as will fourth-seeded Oklahoma and fifth-seeded Auburn.

The winners in the two double-elimination brackets meet in a winner-take-all game for the national championship June 11. CBS will televise the game. Many of the other games will be televised live by ESPN, including the Fullerton-Georgia Tech game at 12:30 p.m. (PDT) on Friday. Four games will be carried live on ESPN2.

This time, unlike in the regional where all the opponents were new faces, the Titans will face a team they defeated earlier in the season. Fullerton beat Georgia Tech, 2-0, in February in Fullerton. Mike Parisi gave up four hits through seven innings, and reliever Ted Silva pitched the last two innings, allowing two hits.

It turned out to be the only time Georgia Tech, now 47-16, was held scoreless all season.

“I really don’t see any advantage for either team in the fact that we played one another earlier in the season,” Garrido said. “George and Rick (Vanderhook) do a real good job in gathering information on all the teams we play. So we’ll know just as much about any of the other teams we play.”

Georgia Tech has three players who are potential first-round selections in Thursday’s major league baseball draft. That group includes catcher Jason Varitek, shortstop Normar Garciaparra and center fielder Jay Payton.

All were first-team All-American selections by Baseball America. Both Varitek and Garciaparra were members of the 1992 U.S. Olympic team.

“They’re an impressive baseball team right now,” Horton said. “It would be a mistake for us to think we’re a better team because of one game played in February.”

Garrido agrees and points out that the important thing for his team is to regroup and be ready to play its best baseball, regardless of the opponent. “What we’ve got to do now is get some rest and get refocused. We’ll need to be at the top of our game on Friday,” he said.

Center fielder Dante Powell, who pulled a hamstring muscle running to first base late in the regional championship game Monday night, was sore Tuesday, but Garrido is hopeful he will be ready by Friday. “Our trainer told me he thought it was more on the minor side of things, that it doesn’t appear to be major,” Garrido said.

The team will be back on the road today, leaving for Omaha in the early afternoon. The Titans will work out there Thursday.