Frank Is on the Mark in Victory Over Titans

Santa Clara’s Mike Frank had slammed a three-run homer, was on the road to pitching eight scoreless innings and had just stolen third base when Cal State Fullerton Coach George Horton found the comparison unavoidable.

Horton looked over at one of his assistants, Rick Vanderhook, and said, “Put a No. 7 on his back and you’d think he was Mark Kotsay.”

Frank definitely had a Kotsay-like day Thursday in leading Santa Clara to a 5-0 victory over the Titans in the NCAA West Regional baseball tournament’s first round at Stanford’s Sunken Diamond.

Frank (11-0), who once played on the same team with Kotsay in the summer Cape Cod League, gave up three hits in eight innings. Frank also had two of Santa Clara’s six hits. The performance rivaled some of the two-way efforts by Kotsay as a clutch hitter and relief pitcher when he led the Titans to the College World Series championship in 1995.

Santa Clara (40-18) has won 24 of its last 26 games. Fullerton (38-23-1) now has been shut out four times this season, the first time that has happened.

The loss dropped the Titans into the losers’ bracket of the double-elimination tournament. They will play Northeastern at 11 a.m. today. Top-seeded Stanford beat Northeastern, 12-3.

Fullerton has never been eliminated in two games in 18 previous regional appearances over the last 22 years.

Thursday’s game followed an all-too-familiar pattern to suit Horton.

“This team hasn’t been strong in the first game of series, or in the first game of tournaments,” Horton said. The Titans lost to Pacific in the opening game of the Big West tournament last week but came back to win four consecutive games and the championship.

Fullerton also hasn’t provided much scoring support for pitcher Matt Wise. It was the third time this season the Titans have been shut out when Wise (5-8) was the starting pitcher. But this was not one of his better efforts, even though he gave up only four hits in six innings. He walked four.

“I didn’t have the control I’ve been living off this year,” Wise said. “It was frustrating because I was falling behind on the count a lot. It may have been a case of trying too hard, and a matter of wanting to go to Omaha so badly.”

Frank’s home run in the third, his 11th of the season, was the back-breaker. Wise got the first batter to fly out, but Eliot Wheeler tripled to the wall in right center. Wheeler was caught between third and the plate on Todd Hughes’ hard-hit ground ball to C.J. Ankrum at first for the second out, but Wise walked Bill Mott before Frank pulled Wise’s second pitch well over the wall in right center.

“When he threw a first-pitch curve, I made up my mind to not get cheated on a fastball, and he threw me one,” Frank said. “I hadn’t seen him double up on a curve, so I was looking for it.”

Wise ran into trouble again in the top of the sixth after getting the first two batters on infield outs. Wise gave up consecutive singles to Paul Chiaffredo and Jeff Frankel, then walked Gabe Cota and Liam Fairbairn, forcing in a run.

Freshman Michael Garner replaced Wise to start seventh, and the Broncos got to him for a quick run. Ryan Owens’ second error of the game opened the door, then Garner walked the second batter and gave up an RBI single to Kevin Okimoto. Garner was replaced by Scott Hild after getting only one out. Hild gave up one hit in the final 2 2/3 innings.

Fullerton had runners on second and third in the first inning on a hit batter and a double by Steve Chatham, but Frank got Aaron Rowand to pop out and Mike Lamb to ground out. The Titans had two runners on base in the fifth with two out, but failed to score.

“Frank was tremendous,” Horton said. “They just did a better job than we did. If we could have broken the ice with a run early it might have made a difference, but it looked as though he was going to be too much for us. It’s our track record that when we try too hard, we get frustrated.”

In another West game:

Stanford 12, Northeastern 3--Joe Kilburg homered, tripled, doubled and drove in three runs and Josh Hochgesang also had three hits and three runs batted in for Stanford (40-18). Stanford will play Texas A&M; today.

* 49ERS WIN: Marcus Jones’ two-hitter helps Long Beach State to 1-0 victory over Oklahoma. C14