Cal State Fullerton Starts Long March to Omaha

Third in the nation and fourth in its conference.

Host of the conference postseason tournament and a visitor in its first-round game.

Cal State Fullerton’s baseball team, the budding dynasty recently stricken by a killer case of hay fever, was out of sorts again Friday night as it opened the 1996 Big West Tournament against Long Beach State.

What was Fullerton--28-2 in nonconference games, 38-4 in its first 42 games, ranked No. 3 in the USA Today/Baseball Weekly national poll--doing on the road at home, filling the role of No. 4 seed against No. 1 Long Beach?

It’s a long story, nine games long at least, and it looked about to grow much longer as another Titan lead sat there in the ninth inning, melting before Augie Garrido’s eyes.

Once upon a time, a 3-0 advantage with Brent Billingsley, Fullerton’s ace starting pitcher, bearing down in the ninth was a foregone conclusion. Through the third week of April, Billingsley was 10-0--thoroughly unbeatable, as opposed to the balance of the Titans,who happened to lose two of their first 33 games.

But on April 26, Billingsley lost to Long Beach, 4-2, at Blair Field, and the symbolism for Fullerton was staggering.

Infallible no more.

Vulnerable after all.

Billingsley’s first defeat was the third in a rare 0-3 stretch by the Titans, who came back to beat the 49ers the next day--and then lost three of their last five.

Including a 10-9 defeat against UC Santa Barbara last Sunday in which Fullerton led by two heading into the top of the ninth--and promptly surrendered five runs.

That left the Titans 3-6 in their nine games leading into the tournament--hardly the recommended way for a defending NCAA champion to prep for the road back to Omaha. In fact, Fullerton’s late wobble dropped the Titans all the way to fourth in the Big West, behind hated but respected Long Beach, but also UNLV and Santa Barbara--basketball schools, for crying out loud.

Three fretful hours on Friday brought the Titans to this anxious point--facing their archrivals in the bottom of the ninth, with a 3-0 lead but the bases loaded and just one out.

Billingsley had caused the nervousness by walking Neil Sauerheber, yielding a single to Jeff Tagliaferri and, one out later, hitting pinch-hitter Casey Snow on the hip with a 3-1 pitch.

The top of the Long Beach order loomed next. Immediately: leadoff man Will Skett, who had walked and singled in four previous at-bats against Billingsley.

Garrido went to the bullpen--and the Angels aren’t the only team around in the throes of a relief pitching crisis. Except here, the problem isn’t who closes games, but can anybody close a game?

Luis Estrella got the call and got Skett to single hard to left field. One run in, bases still loaded.

Next, pinch-hitter J.J. Newkirk. Left-handed hitter, .298 average, had a three-run homer in the series victory over Fullerton two weeks earlier.

Newkirk hit the ball hard once more, but right at a Fullerton infielder this time. Shortstop Jack Jones collected, second baseman Mike Lamb pivoted but it wasn’t until first baseman C.J. Ankrum received the relay that a stadium full of Fullerton supporters finally exhaled.

The Titans, the team that did everything too easily for the season’s first 3 1/2 months, now does everything the hard way.

But, the Titans are winning important games again. Or at least one, always a good place to start.

Titan emotions have been fairly raked the last two weeks, but Billingsley’s first eight innings went a long way to soothing the nerve endings.

“We came out and got to them in the first inning,” catcher Brian Loyd said, alluding to Fullerton’s quick 2-0 lead. “We were playing the way we wanted to play. Brent went out and threw strikes and we played off his emotions.”

A Titan Field record crowd of 2,468 went along for the ride--not counting the dozens turned away at the door and forced to crawl atop storage sheds or lay on their bellies beyond the outfield fences to catch a restricted view of the proceedings. What they witnessed was a bit of history--Fullerton’s largest home crowd ever, and a victory in May, 1996.

It was a sight to behold and remember, especially if it jump starts the Titans’ bandwagon to Omaha.