Late Fullerton Rally Puts Away Missouri

No stars, only talent.

For a team with no players selected in the first three rounds of this week’s amateur baseball draft, Cal State Fullerton features such a complete package that the Titans often win even when they aren’t at their best.

That was the case Friday when Fullerton ace Wes Roemer survived a shaky start and a sleepy offense stirred late during a 7-1 win over Missouri in the first game of a best-of-three NCAA super-regional in Fullerton.

Roemer stranded eight baserunners in the first four innings and the Titans hitters, who had failed to reach base over the same span, pieced together a five-run seventh inning to knock out Missouri ace Max Scherzer.

Fullerton (47-13), which has won 11 consecutive games, can clinch its third trip to the College World Series in four years with a victory tonight at 7.

Roemer gave up a season-high 11 hits in eight innings but struck out nine and proved more formidable as the game went on. The Tigers (35-27) squandered multiple chances to blow open the game early as Roemer (13-1) escaped two-on, one-out jams in the second and fourth innings and a bases-loaded, none-out mess in the third.

“It just feels like when I go out there with my back against the wall that I perform much better,” said Roemer, who limited the Tigers to two for 15 with runners in scoring position.

Justin Turner drove in three runs and helped transform a close game into a rout with his two-run double in the seventh. David Cooper, Brandon Tripp and Cory Vanderhook drove in one run apiece in the inning as the Titans sent nine batters to the plate against three Missouri pitchers, turning a 1-1 tie into a 6-1 lead.

“He was tiring and his velocity fell way off,” Turner said of Scherzer. “It’s a lot easier to hit a 91-mph fastball than a 95-mph fastball.”

Scherzer (7-3), taken in the first round of Tuesday’s draft by the Arizona Diamondbacks with the 11th overall selection, did not allow a baserunner until Danny Dorn singled up the middle on the first pitch of the fifth inning. Cooper attempted to move Dorn to second base with a sacrifice bunt but instead hit into a 1-6-3 double play.

Missouri had taken a 1-0 lead in the second inning on John McKee’s run-scoring double, and loaded the bases with nobody out in the third after Derek Chambers singled through the right side of the infield, Jacob Priday flared a single over shortstop Blake Davis’ head and Zane Taylor reached when Davis misplayed a potential double-play grounder for an error.

But Roemer recovered by inducing a pop-up off the bat of Hunter Mense, striking out McKee and getting Brock Bond to ground out to third.

The Titans played without junior catcher John Curtis, who was suspended for the super-regional because of an unspecified violation of team academic rules. Curtis had started 42 games and hit .263 with 22 runs batted in.