Fullerton, Irvine are chasing the same dream

In the dream, George Horton and Dave Serrano were playing for the national championship -- two rival coaches who refer to each another as brother and who hugged Sunday when one team arrived for practice as the other was leaving.

But dreams sometimes go awry and while the two will face off today when Cal State Fullerton meets UC Irvine in a College World Series game, the stage will be a bit more subdued.

This is an elimination game.

“It’s bittersweet,” said Horton, the Fullerton coach. “One of the two of us is going to have to go home. It isn’t exactly how we had it mapped out.”

Horton and Serrano have known each another for nearly a quarter century. Serrano pitched for Horton at Cerritos College, then joined Horton as pitching coach there. When Horton took the job at Fullerton, Serrano joined him there, serving as an assistant for eight years before taking over at Irvine in 2004.

“He’s a second father to me, a best friend to me,” Serrano said. “It’s just too bad we had to meet in this situation. One of us is going to lose and it’s not going to be easy on either of us either way.”

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Fullerton and Irvine played a three-game Big West Conference series April 5-7. Irvine won two of the three games, 2-1 and 12-6.

But the 10-2 win by Fullerton on April 6 came in a matchup of Wes Etheridge of Irvine and Jeff Kaplan of Fullerton -- the same pitchers who will start tonight.

The Titans tagged Etheridge for seven runs and nine hits in three innings and handed him his first loss of the season. Etheridge (12-4) has given up only 17 hits and four earned runs in his last four starts, but the Titans said the April 6 game gives them confidence.

“We faced Etheridge before and we handed him a loss,” outfielder Nick Mahin said. “We’re familiar with him. He’s pitching well right now, but I think we can break him down.”

Kaplan (11-3) pitched 7 1/3 innings in that game, giving up two runs and five hits. He hasn’t lost since April 28.

“It’s good and bad,” Irvine outfielder Ollie Linton said about playing a familiar foe. “We know a lot about them, but they know a lot about us.”

Added Horton: “We don’t have to look at tape, we don’t have to look at scouting reports. I know their coach pretty good and they know this coach pretty good.”

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Because Fullerton and Irvine each began the College World Series without a loss in postseason play, tonight’s game is the first elimination game either has faced.

“We’re not going to play with a lot of emotion,” Linton said. “We’re not too good when we play with too much emotion so we just have to stick to what we’ve been doing all year and things will take care of themselves.”

The loss Saturday was Irvine’s first since May 26. The Anteaters had won six consecutive games.

“If we win six in a row starting now, we’ll be celebrating a national championship,” Serrano said.

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Rice had a six-run second inning and Joe Savery pitched six-plus solid innings to beat North Carolina, 14-4, Sunday.

One more victory would put the Owls (56-12) in the best-of-three championship series that starts Saturday.

North Carolina (54-14) used a College World Series-record eight pitchers.

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Chris Dominguez hit two of four home runs by Louisville (47-23), which eliminated Mississippi State (38-22) with a 12-4 victory.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

peter.yoon@latimes.com