Titans Win, Clinch Spot in Baseball Playoffs

Cal State Fullerton rallied from a seven-run deficit and defeated New Mexico State, 19-11, in a Big West Conference baseball game Saturday in Las Cruces, N.M., to clinch an NCAA playoff berth and a share of the conference championship.

Spencer Oborn had four hits, including two home runs, and six runs batted in for Fullerton. He has five home runs in his last three games.

Craig Patterson also homered and had three RBIs and Ryan Owens and Chris Stringfellow each had three hits and two RBIs for the Titans (42-9, 23-3 in conference).

Fullerton trailed, 8-1, after two innings, but Oborn hit a triple to start the third and he added a two-run home run later in the inning to cap a nine-run outburst that gave the Titans the lead for good.

Matt Sorensen gave up seven earned runs in 7 2/3 innings to improve to 10-0 for Fullerton.

Second-place Nevada is the only team that can catch Fullerton, and the Titans own the tiebreaker after sweeping the three-game series (March 26-28) with the Wolfpack.

Chris Roberson had four hits, including two home runs, eight RBIs for New Mexico State (17-35, 6-20).

The three-game series concludes today in Las Cruces.

At the U.S. Intercollegiate men’s golf tournament:

Beard wins--Pepperdine’s Michael Beard defeated Stanford’s Joel Kribel in a playoff to win the 54-hole tournament at Stanford. Beard shot a final-round two-over 73 and tied Kribel for medalist honors at seven-under 206.

Kevin Stevens shot a final-round 72 to finish at eight-over 221 to lead UC Irvine to a 10th-place finish at 894. Brigham Young won with 852, 10 strokes ahead of second-place Oregon.

In Big West Conference softball:

CS Fullerton 3-12, New Mexico State 0-1--Monica Lucatero hit a home run in each victory for Fullerton (33-24, 12-8).

At the Golden State Athletic Conference men’s tennis tournament:

Rohlin sweeps--Point Loma’s Mattias Rohlin teamed with Nathan Bell to defeat Southern California College’s Joakim Ulfvebrand and Peter Skrzeczynski, 6-1, 6-2, in the doubles final at the Costa Mesa Tennis Club.

Rohlin also won the singles title, defeating Azusa Pacific’s Martin Dvorcek, 6-0, 7-5.

In nonconference men’s tennis:

UCLA 5, UC Irvine 2--Chris Chung won his No. 6 singles match, 6-2, 6-1, and teamed with Chris Ma to win at No. 2 doubles, 8-6, for visiting Irvine (15-6).