COLLEGE BASEBALL ROUNDUP : Ward Gets Titans Past Pacific, 2-1

Cal State Fullerton’s Jon Ward, who has been struggling lately, turned in a solid pitching effort Friday night, giving up only five hits in eight innings as the Titans won the opening game of their Big West Conference series with University of the Pacific, 2-1.

All three runs were unearned.

Pacific also had a strong performance from pitcher Scott Mitchell, who deserved a better fate. Mitchell (4-5) gave up only three hits in eight innings.

It was the seventh consecutive victory for Fullerton (37-6) and lifted the nation’s top-ranked team to 11-2 in the Big West. Pacific (24-19) dropped to 4-9 in the conference. The second game of the series is at 7 tonight, with the finale at 1 p.m. Sunday.

The Titans’ two top challengers in the conference, Nevada and Long Beach State, both lost Friday, leaving Fullerton three games ahead of both.

“The pitching sure was the story of that game,” Titan Coach Augie Garrido said. “Jon pitched very well and Scott pitched one of the three best games against us all season. And I thought our catching with Brian Loyd was sensational. He took away some good opportunities with his throwing.”

Loyd threw out three Pacific runners. He is 20 of 38 on throwing out runners attempting to steal this season.

Titan associate head coach George Horton felt Ward’s outing was his best of the year. “I saw early in the game that he didn’t have his best fastball, and so went to his two breaking pitches. He had both of them going and it worked out well,” he said.

The Titans grabbed up two runs in the first off Mitchell, and that turned out to be all they needed.

Mark Kotsay had a two-out single and scored when Pacific left fielder Tim Schmierer dropped Ruben Hernandez’s fly ball down the line. Hernandez came home on Jeremy Giambi’s double. Pacific pushed across its run in the second, when Curt Zimmerman doubled and scored on shortstop Jack Jones’ error.

The rest of the game belonged to the pitchers.

Ted Silva, scheduled to start Sunday, replaced Ward in the ninth to pick up his fifth save of the year.

“I think I figured out what I’ve been doing wrong,” Ward said. “I slowed down my windup, and I think that helped. I was much more relaxed than I have been lately. Before tonight, I’d been trying to make every pitch perfect.”

In another Big West game:

UC Santa Barbara 7, Long Beach State 3--Host Santa Barbara (18-18, 5-8) stopped a five-game losing streak overall and nine-game losing streak against Long Beach State (21-19-1, 8-5).

Jason Hodges, from Cypress College, had three hits and drove in a run and Kirk Pierce, from Westminster High, had two hits, including his fifth home run, for the 49ers, who were held to eight hits.

Jason Minici, from Rancho Santiago College, had a triple, his fourth, for Long Beach.

David Willis had a two-run double for Santa Barbara, which put the game away with three runs in the seventh. The teams play at at 1 p.m. today and Sunday in Santa Barbara.

In Golden State Athletic Conference baseball:

Biola 12, Southern California College 10--Scott Blackwell was three for four with one run scored and two RBIs and Shain Logeais and Curtis Marsh each had two hits to lead Biola (15-21, 4-13).