Fullerton Is Finally Rewarded

Cal State Fullerton has won three national championships, appeared in the College World Series 10 times and made 21 NCAA playoff appearances.

The Titans, however, have never hosted an NCAA tournament regional.

That will change May 26 when the Titans host one of 16, four-team regionals in the 64-team playoffs.

The NCAA Division I Baseball Committee announced the regional sites Monday. Tournament participants will be announced next Monday.

“This is a great day for Titan baseball,” Fullerton Coach George Horton said. “Now we need college baseball fans in Southern California, especially those in Orange County, to step up and sell the place out so we can continue to host in years to come.”

Fullerton, Louisiana Lafayette and Rutgers were selected as regional hosts for the first time.

Fullerton was the only Southland school to submit a regional bid, which must be for a minimum of $35,000, said Dick Rockwell, chairman of the 10-member committee of which Fullerton Athletic Director John Easterbrook is a member.

Stanford and Arizona State, other teams in the West, also were awarded regionals.

Other schools given regionals are Baylor, Clemson, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Houston, Louisiana State, Miami, Minnesota, Mississippi State, Oklahoma and South Carolina.

Monday’s announcement was regarded as a huge, but not unexpected, victory for a Fullerton program that is a perennial national championship contender, despite facilities that have paled compared to schools such as Texas, Miami, Louisiana State and other powers.

Rockwell said 16th-ranked Fullerton, 34-17 overall and leading the Big West Conference at 20-7, was selected over Fresno State as a site--even though attendance history clearly favored Fresno State--because the Titans lead their conference, have an extremely good Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) score and have an exceptional nonconference RPI.

In addition, Fullerton has made improvements to Titan Field as part of a $3.5-million baseball and softball facilities project. Easterbrook said stadium capacity is about 4,000.

Last year, Fullerton coaches and officials were incensed when the committee chose Ohio State as a super-regional site over Fullerton, even though Fullerton was among the top eight seeded teams in the tournament.

“One of the toughest decisions this committee had to make last year was [that] super-regional,” Rockwell said. “Since that, there has been a great deal of improvement to the [Fullerton] ballpark. There is much more emphasis on improving the facility.

“I hope that some of the decisions we do make will help improve facilities [nationwide]. I think this is an example of that.”

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UCLA, ranked 22nd by Collegiate Baseball, is in position to win its first Pacific 10 Conference championship since 1986 when the Bruins travel to second-ranked Stanford this weekend for a three-game, regular-season finale.

After defeating Arizona, 8-5, on Monday, the Bruins are in first place with a record of 34-22 overall and 16-5 in conference play. The Bruins lead Stanford (39-12, 15-6) and Arizona State (40-12, 15-6) by one game. No. 18 USC (35-18, 13-8) is in fourth place.

All four teams are certain to receive berths in the playoffs, but only the champion receives an automatic berth.

Arizona State plays at Arizona this weekend and USC is at Washington.

If Arizona State finishes in a first-place tie with UCLA or Stanford, the Sun Devils will receive the automatic bid because they won conference series against the Bruins and Cardinal.

The West Coast Conference title will also be determined this weekend when No. 20 Loyola Marymount (37-17) plays host to Pepperdine (36-21) in the best-of-three WCC championship series.

In the Big West, Long Beach State (29-24, 16-11) needs to win at least two of three games this weekend at home against Fullerton--but probably needs a sweep--to keep its playoff hopes alive.