Baseball Team Must Prove Worthy of Postseason Play

Cal State Fullerton’s baseball team is at a crossroads.

The Titans, who have reached the College World Series four times in the last seven years, are 20-14 with 22 games left in the regular season. Just enough time to show they deserve to be in the national picture again before the Big West Conference tournament begins. Or that they might not be worthy.

“What we need to do now is string some victories together,” Coach George Horton said.

The opportunity is there after the Titans won the last two games against Pacific. They play today at San Diego, a team they swept in a three-game series this season, and then go to Sacramento State for a three-game series beginning Friday.

If they can win all four, they’ll have some momentum for next week, when they face eighth-ranked USC at midweek, then play a three-game rematch with division-leading Long Beach State on the weekend. The 49ers won two of three games against the Titans in early March at Blair Field and have been on a roll ever since. Long Beach leads Fullerton in the Big West Southern Division by three games.

The Titans’ longest winning streak has been six games early in the season. Since then, they’ve won no more than three in a row. That underlines the team’s biggest problem: inconsistency.

Fullerton has been shut out three times in the last seven games but scored an average of 12 1/2 runs in the four they won. It has been a feast-or-famine offense.

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Matt Wise’s pitching record pinpoints the problem.

Wise has been regarded as Fullerton’s No. 1 starter, yet his record is 1-5. However, the Titans have scored only 14 runs in his last six starts, which means they’ve been ineffective much of the season against the opposition’s No. 1 pitcher.

“We can’t ask Matt to pitch any better than he has,” pitching coach Dave Serrano said. “We just have to start swinging the bat better when he’s pitching.” The Titans also haven’t been at their best in close games; they are 6-7 in games decided by one or two runs.

“Until we learn to compete pitch by pitch, we won’t be as good as we can be,” Horton said. “I think improving our competitive attitude is still the No. 1 thing for us. We haven’t been ready to compete in some games. But we’ve had some good efforts come up short too. Some of that is just baseball. Players go through slumps.”

Second baseman Nakia Hill and first baseman C.J. Ankrum are examples of that.

Hill got off to a fast start, and was hitting .442 with five home runs after 20 games, but he went through a period where he hit only .190. For the season, he’s hitting a team-leading .374, but he also leads the team in strikeouts with 26.

“I’ve had to go back to the basics and work on my mechanics,” Hill said. “I just wasn’t putting the ball in play the way I need to do.”

Ankrum was hitting only .257 after the first 20 games, but has boosted his average to .342 with solid performances recently. Ankrum is hitting .467 in the team’s 12 Big West games, and had four hits and seven runs batted Saturday against Pacific.

“The coaches keep telling me that the game rewards the people who are working hard, and I’ve been doing that,” Ankrum said. “When you’re slumping, you wonder. It seems like it took me 20 or 25 games to get going.”

Outfielder Scott Seal, who has the potential to be one of the team’s top hitters, is slumping now.

“It’s hard for everyone to stay sharp through an entire season,” Horton said. “Seal just isn’t swinging very well right now.”

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The Titans’ worst stretch was in February, when they lost six of eight games, including two of three against Pepperdine and one to Loyola Marymount.

But Fullerton also swept a three-game series from Arizona (25-16) and won two of three from Stanford (23-8), which is ahead of UCLA and USC in the Pac-10’s Southern Division.

The weekend pitching rotation seems to be more solid now, with Wise joined by Brian Tokarse (7-0, 2.36 earned-run average) and Brandon Duckworth (5-1, 5.14). John Alkire, who struggled early in the season in the rotation, also has shown recent improvement and could become the No. 4 starter.

Titan Notes

Gymnast Katy Maty probably won’t compete in Saturday’s NCAA West Regional at Boise State. Maty won the Big West all-around championship but sprained her knee in the final event. “It doesn’t look good for her to compete this week, but the MRI showed it was nothing more than a sprain,” associate head coach Julie Knight said. . . . The softball team had a good showing last week, winning five of six games. The Titans won doubleheaders from Tennessee and UC Santa Barbara and split two games with No. 10-ranked Long Beach State. Pitcher Jana Oetgen was 3-1 for the week.

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Coming Attractions

Here’s a look at key games this week for Cal State Fullerton:

* Baseball at San Diego 2:30 p.m. today and at Sacramento State 2 p.m. Friday and 1 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

* Big West Challenge Cup track meet, noon Saturday at Titan Track Complex.

* Softball against New Mexico State 1 p.m. Saturday at Titan Softball Complex.

* Women’s gymnastics at NCAA West Regional Saturday at Boise State.