It’s Title Time for the Titans : Baseball: Kotsay hits two homers and pitches final five outs of 11-5 victory over USC in College World Series.

After Mark Kotsay hit the first pitch he saw against USC for a three-run home run, Cal State Fullerton first baseman D.C. Olsen turned to a teammate in the Titan dugout and said: “The guy is not human.”

After Kotsay hit a two-run homer on the first swing of his second at-bat, USC catcher Chad Moeller turned toward the Trojan dugout and told the coaching staff: “He’s the Messiah.”

Kotsay drove in five runs, made an outstanding catch in center field and also pitched the final 1 2/3 innings of the College World Series championship game as Fullerton won its third national title with an 11-5 victory before 22,027 at Rosenblatt Stadium.

Tony Martinez and Tony Miranda hit consecutive homers to highlight a four-run seventh inning as the Titans closed out a 57-9 season with their 18th consecutive victory.

Fullerton, which lost to Pepperdine in the 1992 championship game, hit a series-record .372 in victories over eighth-seeded Stanford, fifth-seeded Tennessee and sixth-seeded USC to become the first top-seeded team to win the title under a format that was adopted in 1988.

“This is the most consistent team I’ve ever been involved with,” said Coach Augie Garrido, who also guided the Titans to national championships in 1979 and 1984. “But when it comes down to one game, you always think some twist of fate is right around the corner that is going to do you in. That didn’t happen to this group.”

In a World Series with a record 48 home runs, Fullerton and USC established a championship-game record by hitting seven, including five in the first 2 1/2 innings. Geoff Jenkins, Ernie Diaz and Walter Dawkins hit homers for USC (49-21), which was making its first World Series appearance since 1978, the year the Trojans won the last of their record 11 national championships.

“If the wind was going to be blowing, I knew it was going to be a slugfest,” said Fullerton right-hander Ted Silva (18-1), who gave up six hits, struck out five and did not walk a batter in 7 1/3 innings. “So, we just outslugged them.”

Kotsay, a sophomore from Santa Fe Springs who also starred in last year’s World Series, led the way by hitting his 20th and 21st homers against right-hander Brian Cooper (8-3). He was voted the tournament’s outstanding player after going nine for 16 (.563) with three homers, two doubles and 10 runs batted in. He also established himself as the greatest hitter in series history with a .517 career batting average and a 1.103 slugging percentage.

“I get in a zone here, but I can’t explain how I get there,” said Kotsay, whose two homers tied a championship-game record set by Bill Horning of Minnesota in 1956 against Arizona. “I guess I just love the environment and the pressure.”

Fullerton responded to every challenge throughout the series with solid pitching, outstanding defense and an offense that manufactured runs with the liberal use of bunts and home runs. Fullerton, in fact, set championship-game records with four home runs and four sacrifices against USC.

Silva gave up a three-run homer to Diaz in the top of the second inning and solo homers to Dawkins and Jenkins in the third that cut Fullerton’s lead to 7-5. He then retired nine in a row before yielding a single to Moeller at the start of the seventh.

Olsen, however, erased the threat when he went to his left to field a hard ground ball hit by Greg Walbridge, stepped on first base and threw to shortstop Jack Jones, who tagged Moeller to complete a double play. Diaz followed with a double before Silva struck out Wes Rachels.

“That play by Olsen was the big play in this game,” USC Coach Mike Gillespie said. “Kotsay’s performance is the one that jumps out at you, but that play was huge.”

So was the three-run shot Martinez hit into the right-field bleachers against Seth Etherton, who replaced Cooper in the fourth. Martinez’s homer, his seventh of the season and third of the series, came with two out after Joe Fraser reached base on an error and Olsen walked. Miranda finished the scoring with his 12th homer, chasing Etherton.

Silva struck out Dawkins to start the eighth, then gave way to the left-handed Kotsay, who gave up two hits and struck out two before getting Diaz to fly out to left field for the final out.

Gillespie said he was proud of a Trojan team that lost its opener against Miami before defeating Oklahoma and Florida State once and Miami twice to set up only the second championship game matching teams from Southern California.

But Fullerton, which spent most of the season ranked No. 1, never strayed from form.

“It seemed like they came together about the first inning of their first game [of the season],” Gillespie said. “And they just kept getting better.”

Untouchable

A list of College World Series champions that were not defeated in the tournament, with year, school, regular season and CWS records:

Year School Record CWS 1947 California 27-10 2-0 1949 Texas 18-7 3-0 1951 Oklahoma 15-9 4-0 1957 California 28-9 5-0 1961 USC 34-8 5-0 1968 USC 38-13 5-0 1973 USC 42-11 5-0 1978 USC 46-9 5-0 1982 Miami, Fla. 49-18 5-0 1983 Texas 56-13 5-0 1991 Louisiana State 47-18 4-0 1992 Pepperdine 44-11-1 4-0 1994 Oklahoma 57-14 4-0 1995 CS Fullerton 57-9 4-0