Archrivals Clash for Title

The teams aren’t fond of each other, and neither are their fans. But that is what has helped make the Cal State Fullerton-Long Beach State baseball rivalry one of the best in the nation.

The archrivals meet again tonight at sold-out Blair Field in Long Beach with the Big West Conference title at stake. Fullerton, ranked 22nd by Baseball America magazine, needs one victory in the three-game weekend series to clinch. Eighth-ranked Long Beach needs a sweep.

Despite a number of starters returning from a team that reached the College World Series, the Titans (33-20, 16-2) stumbled to a 15-16 start. It was a 9-3 victory over Long Beach (36-13, 14-4) in a nonconference game April 4 that triggered a stretch in which they’ve won 18 of 22.

“When league started, there were a lot of people that didn’t think this series coming up was going to mean the league championship,” Fullerton Coach George Horton said.

Tonight’s game may feature this season’s best pitching matchup. Long Beach junior Jered Weaver, projected by some to be the No. 1 overall pick in the June amateur draft, will face one of the nation’s hottest pitchers in Fullerton senior Jason Windsor.

Weaver has thrown consecutive two-hit complete games and given up two or fewer hits six times en route to a 14-0 record, a 1.27 earned-run average and 171 strikeouts.

Windsor (7-4, 2.24) has thrown five consecutive complete games and is coming off a five-hit shutout of UC Irvine. In six conference starts, he is 6-0, yielding only seven earned runs.

-- Eric Stephens

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Second-ranked UCLA took a five-shot lead over Oklahoma State in the NCAA women’s golf championships with a six-under-par 286 in the third round at Opelika, Ala. Susie Mathews of UCLA and Karin Sjodin of Oklahoma State shot 68s for the individual lead at eight-under 208.... Top-seeded UCLA shot a five-under 283, led by Travis Johnson’s six-under 66, for a one-stroke lead over New Mexico after the first round of the men’s NCAA Division I West Regional at Sunriver, Ore.

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Laura Gordon defeated Melissa Esmero, 7-5, 3-6, 6-4, to clinch ninth-seeded UCLA’s 4-2 victory in the round of 16 over eighth-seeded USC in the NCAA Division I women’s tennis tournament at Athens, Ga. The Bruins (19-7), who had lost both matchups to USC this season, will play unseeded Miami today in the quarterfinals. USC finished 18-7.

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Keira Goerl pitched a five-inning no-hitter to lead host and top-seeded UCLA (40-9) to an 8-0, mercy-rule victory over Mississippi Valley State (31-16) in the opening game of an NCAA softball regional.

Third-seeded Long Beach State (49-12) won an elimination game, 3-2, over Central Michigan (32-20) on Melanie McCauley’s ninth-inning RBI single. Earlier, Long Beach had lost to Cornell, 2-1. The 49ers will play the loser of the UCLA-Louisville game today.

In other regionals: Christen Bedwell hit a sixth-inning solo home run to lead Cal State Northridge (34-17) to a 2-1 victory over Florida (40-19) at Tallahassee, Fla. Northridge will play top-seeded Florida State today.... UC Santa Barbara (32-31) was eliminated at Tucson after an 8-1 loss to Northwestern in the morning followed by a 3-1 setback to Temple at night.... Cristin Vitek set an NCAA record for strikeouts with 28 in 16 innings to lead Baylor to a 1-0 victory over North Carolina at Waco, Texas.