COLLEGE BASEBALL ROUNDUP : Titans Help San Jose Avoid Series Sweep

San Jose State twice walked off the baseball field at Cal State Fullerton embarrassed by its performance earlier in the weekend.

But Sunday it was Fullerton’s turn as the top-ranked Titans made five errors that led to four unearned runs as San Jose State upset them, 6-3, in a Big West Conference game at Fullerton.

The loss stopped Fullerton’s 11-game winning streak and broke a streak of four games, during which the Titans scored 11 or more runs. Fullerton beat San Jose, 11-1, Friday and 17-1 Saturday.

But the Titans (26-4, 2-1) had trouble from the first pitch on Sunday when San Jose’s Travis Peterson hit a grounder toward shortstop Jack Jones.

The ball bounced off Jones and into center field. First baseman D.C. Olsen and second baseman Joe Fraser also made errors in the inning and San Jose took a 3-0 lead.

San Jose scored another unearned run in the third on an Olsen error.

“It was a day of assumption,” Fullerton Coach Augie Garrido said. “(The Titans) just assumed they were going to get some things done and lost respect for the game. The errors that we made were the difference.”

That and the pitching of San Jose starter Rich Ledeit, a junior right-hander. He limited the Titans to seven hits and made some key pitches to escape jams. Ledeit, making only his third start after working in relief earlier in the season, improved to 5-1.

His biggest pitch came in the eighth when the Titans were trying to rally. C.J. Ankron had a two-out single and Brian Loyd followed with a run-scoring double to left to cut the lead to 6-3.

That brought up Mark Kotsay, who leads the Titans in hitting (.442 average), home runs (eight) and runs batted in (44).

On a 2-2 pitch, Ledeit threw a slow breaking ball and an off-balance Kotsay hit a weak grounder to second to end the inning.

“They called for a fastball,” Ledeit said. “But I shook them off, I wanted to throw a curve.”

As a result of the Titans’ sloppy defense, the strong pitching of Ted Silva was wasted. Silva (8-1) pitched a seven-hitter and had a career-high 15 strikeouts.

Fullerton also had a chance in the ninth. Tony Miranda started with a deep fly out to right-center, then Jeremy Giambi walked.

But Ledeit struck out Olsen and Fraser to end the game.

“We hit a lot of balls hard but right at people,” Garrido said. “We hit with that added little bit of pressure of being behind so we were less effective.”

In another Big West Conference game:

Long Beach State 7, Nevada 3--Scott Rivette gave up six hits and struck out 12 as host Long Beach (15-11-1, 3-0) completed a sweep of 14th-ranked Nevada (19-8, 0-3).

Nevada scored three runs in the third to tie it, 3-3, but Long Beach went up, 5-3, with two unearned runs in the same inning. Tim Falsken had two hits and drove in three runs for Long Beach.