Cal State Fullerton Comes Back to Take Series

Cal State Fullerton’s baseball season is only four games old, but the Titans already have won a series from a nationally prominent opponent and given Coach George Horton reason to be pleased.

Fullerton came back strong Sunday after an embarrassing 10-run loss to Stanford a night earlier, and won the deciding game of the three-game series, 9-5, in front of 2,009, the third consecutive standing-room-only crowd at Titan Field.

“That was a good bounce-back effort, and that’s what you like for a team to do after the way we were embarrassed the other night,” Horton said. “But even in that game, we didn’t roll over. We know we have some things to work on, but the bottom line is that we won two of three games against what is going to be a real good baseball team this season.,”

Stanford (3-2) was ranked No. 1 in Baseball America’s preseason poll, primarily because of three starting pitchers regarded as first-round draft choices. Sophomore Chad Hutchinson, who turned down $1.4 million from the Atlanta Braves as a first-round pick out of high school to play football and baseball at Stanford, started Sunday’s game, but the Titans (2-2) got to him for four runs in the first three innings.

The problem for Fullerton was that Titan starter Scott Hild also gave up four runs in the first three innings. Hild gave up five runs in 4 1/3 innings, but shutout relief pitching by senior Mike Greenlee and junior transfer Brandon Duckworth made the difference.

Greenlee gave up only one hit in 2 1/3 innings and picked up his first victory of the season. Duckworth gave up two hits in the final 2 1/3 innings, getting his first save.

“Both of them did a great job,” Horton said. “Scott didn’t have his best stuff, but he got us far enough that Greenlee could come in and get his normal six or seven outs, and Duckworth did well again to finish up. Duckworth has definitely shown us he can be our closer.

Hild gave up two runs in the first on four hits, but Fullerton got one run back in the same inning when Mike Lamb singled in leadoff batter Steve Chatham, who had walked. Each team scored a run in the second. Fullerton’s run scored when Aaron Rowand reached on an error, advanced on Hutchinson’s throwing error, stole third and came home on a wild pitch.

Stanford picked up another run in the third on C.J. Ankrum’s two-out error at first base, but the Titans tied it, 4-4, with two runs in the bottom of the inning.

Reed Johnson walked, stole second, moved to third on a bunt and scored on Lamb’s sacrifice fly. Scott Seal, who was hit by a pitch, scored the second run after consecutive singles by Rowand and Nakia Hill.

Brent Hoard (0-1) replaced Hutchinson at the start of the fourth. “He was getting close to his 60-70 pitch limit for this point in the season anyway,” Stanford Coach Mark Marquess said.

The Titans got to Hoard for four runs in the fifth. Lamb led off the inning with a double and scored on Seal’s hit. Jerome Alviso drove in another run, and Ryan Fullerton’s pinch-hit single kept the inning alive with two out for Chatham to connect for a two-run double. Stanford had 12 hits, nine of them coming off Hild. Fullerton made the most of nine hits, two each by Lamb and Hill, as well as four Cardinal errors.

“One disappointing thing is we didn’t take our best at-bats with guys in scoring position,” Horton said. “But we got runners on bases early in innings, and that helped too.”

Marquess said his team didn’t get the kind of pitching it needed in the three-game series. “You have to give Fullerton some credit for that,” he said. “They swing the bat well. Normally, the pitching is a little behind the hitting at this point in the season, and it seemed to be that way in this series.”