Stanford Beats Fullerton in All Phases

Stanford has thrived on good pitching this season, but the Cardinal got strong hitting to go with it Saturday night against Cal State Fullerton in the College World Series.

The Cardinal hit three home runs, including a three-run shot by Josh Hochgesang, and rode the six-hit, complete-game pitching of Jason Young to a 9-2 first-round victory over the Titans in front of 23,302 in Rosenblatt Stadium.

“We were confident in our ability to hit the ball,” said Hochgesang, who grew up in Fullerton and played at Sunny Hills High. “What we’ve done all year long is find a way to win, and that’s what we did this time.”

Adam Johnson, who gave up two hits over 6 1/3 innings in Fullerton’s season-opening victory over Stanford, gave up 10 hits and seven runs in five innings. Johnson had been suspended for last week’s super-regional because of a rock-throwing incident at South Bend, Ind., in the regional a week earlier.

“When I pitched against them before, I threw first-pitch strikes, but I didn’t do that tonight, and I made a lot of mistakes,” Johnson said. “I don’t think it was rustiness from not pitching last week. Sometimes I hit my spots and sometimes I didn’t.”

Stanford (49-13) advanced to the winners’ bracket Monday against Florida State (54-12), which defeated Texas A&M; earlier in the day. The loss sends Fullerton (49-13) into an elimination game against the Aggies (52-17) Monday night.

“In 1979, we lost our first game and came back and won five in a row and won the championship,” Titan Coach George Horton said. “We lost our second game in ’84 and won [the title]. We just have to play better. But now we’ve eliminated any chance for error.”

The Titans made five errors against Stanford, three of them by relief pitcher Marco Hanlon, one of four players suspended last week. Hanlon made two bad pickoff throws to first base, one resulting in two Stanford runs in the sixth.

By then, however, Stanford had built a 5-2 lead against Johnson on the homers by Hochgesang, Edmund Muth and Joe Borchard. “I thought we hit the ball well for the first time in weeks,” Stanford Coach Mark Marquess said. The Cardinal hit Johnson hard in the first two innings without scoring, but it showed signs of things to come. In the first, Jeff Rizzo singled and went to third when John Gall hit a line drive to right, but Gall was thrown out by Robert Guzman trying to stretch it into a double. Borchard ripped a drive to right center, but Guzman went to the wall to catch it.

Stanford had runners on second and third with one out in the second, but Johnson escaped by striking out the final two batters in the inning. But Hochgesang homered in the third--his 17th of the season--with two out after singles by Rizzo and Gall.

Muth’s one-out, bases-empty homer in the fourth, his fifth home run of the season, boosted Stanford’s lead to 4-0. Only a diving over-the-shoulder catch by Guzman on Gall’s drive to right-center later in the inning kept two more runs from scoring.

Borchard led off the fifth with his 11th homer, and Hanlon took over for Johnson in the sixth. Fullerton came back with a triple by Shawn Norris and a homer to left by catcher Craig Patterson for two runs in the fifth, but the Titans gave them back in the top of the sixth on Hanlon’s throwing error.

“The bad thing is we had the guy picked off,” Horton said. “Marco was trying to hold on to the ball, and that’s why it was so wild. But as I told our players, we got a lot of crucial outs on those plays in the regionals, and we’re not going to back off our game.”

In another opener:

Florida State 7, Texas A&M; 3--Slugger Matt Diaz hit two home runs and reliever Chris Chavez quelled a bases-loaded, no-outs threat in the fifth inning to lead Florida State.

With the wind blowing out, Diaz went three for five with three RBIs and scored twice.

Chavez, meanwhile, retired 12 straight Aggies and struck out six for the second-seeded Seminoles after replacing starter Nick Stocks with the bases loaded and no outs in the fifth and Florida State ahead, 4-3.

“It was a big momentum shift to get three outs with the bases loaded,” Chavez said. “It took the wind out of their sails.”

Chavez proceeded to strike out the side on 14 pitches, 11 of them strikes.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

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TODAY

* Alabama (52-14) vs. Miami (47-13), 12:30 p.m.

Oklahoma State (46-20) vs. Rice (58-14), 4:30 p.m.

MONDAY

* Florida State (54-12) vs. Stanford (49-13), 12:30 p.m.

* Texas A&M; (52-17) vs. Cal State Fullerton (49-13), 4:30 p.m.