COLLEGE SOFTBALL / NCAA WORLD SERIES : Williams Ends Slump in Time to Save Titans

Julie Williams didn’t need to be reminded that she was in a batting slump.

She acknowledged it with a hearty laugh Thursday, minutes after slugging the game-winning hit in the top of the seventh to give Cal State Fullerton a 1-0 victory over Nevada Las Vegas in a first-round softball game of the Women’s College World Series in front of 2,367 at Hall of Fame Stadium.

Williams went hitless in all three regional games last week, and after looking at a third strike in her first series at-bat, it didn’t appear that Williams, a freshman shortstop, from Dublin (Calif.) High was going to break out any time soon.

“It wasn’t just last week that I O-ferred ,” said Williams, a .292 hitter who had had only two hits in her previous 18 at-bats before getting the game-winner. “It’s been like that for a while. But I knew I was due. It was just a matter of time, but I knew it would happen.”

And it couldn’t have happened at a better time in the season. Williams, who had two of the Titans’ three hits off Amie Stewart (28-8), hit a two-out single up the middle to drive in Chris Zboril, who had walked to start the inning.

Fifth-seeded Fullerton (46-16), which will face top-seeded Arizona (64-5) at 4 p.m. (PDT) today, had only three baserunners in the first six innings--none of whom advanced beyond first base.

But in the seventh, Stewart worked herself into her first and only jam when she hit Shannon Dolan with a 1-2 pitch to put runners at first and second with one out. Zboril advanced to third on Traci Fischer’s pop fly in foul territory.

Rebel second baseman Amy Watkins made the catch about 30 feet beyond first base, but slipped and fell when she turned to throw to third.

It wasn’t the first slip-up by the Rebels (47-13), who had 11 baserunners and stranded nine despite having only one hit off senior right-hander Jennifer Mortensen (23-6).

Sara Mallett (La Habra High) managed the Rebels’ lone hit, a line-drive single to left to start the fourth.

Watkins drew a two-out walk in the bottom of the seventh for UNLV, but Kim Rondina, the Rebels’ top hitter with 54 runs batted in, lined out to Fischer at third base to end it.

It was the fifth meeting this season between the Titans and UNLV, both of the Big West Conference. All five games have been determined by a single run, with Fullerton now holding a 3-2 edge in the series.

It was also the 11th time Fullerton has scored in the final inning to win, which isn’t doing much for Fullerton Coach Judi Garman’s state of mind.

“We’ll score in the top of the seventh, then walk someone in the bottom of the seventh just to see how good the coach’s heart is,” Garman said.

Rain suspended play in the third game of the series. Southwestern Louisiana (48-7) had just scored a run against Michigan (50-10) in the bottom of the first inning when officials waved off the teams and rolled out the tarp to cover the infield. Fifty-six minutes later, officials determined that the game would resume at 8 a.m. today, and pushed back the UCLA-Iowa game until 10:30 a.m.

Arizona opened the tournament with a 9-1 victory over Princeton, in a game halted after five innings due to the eight-run rule.