CS Fullerton Wins, Gains Momentum

FULLERTON — Cal State Fullerton will have some momentum on its side going into the Big West Conference postseason baseball tournament.

Sunday’s 6-1 victory over UC Santa Barbara at Titan Field in the regular-season finale assured that. It was the Fullerton’s 11th victory in its last 13 games, and it had all the elements that Coach George Horton wanted: Solid pitching, timely hitting and flawless defense.

Brandon Duckworth, making his first start since a strained back muscle left him on the sidelines for two weeks, limited the Gauchos to four hits and one run in five innings. Scott Hild came on to give up only two hits in 3 1/3 innings, and Mike Greenlee closed it out by striking out the final two batters.

Fullerton improved to 34-21-1, 21-9 in the Big West, and finished one game behind Long Beach State in the Southern Division. Cal Poly San Luis Obispo completed a surprising three-game sweep of Long Beach Sunday.

The Big West tournament begins Thursday. Fullerton will play Pacific at 7 p.m. at Titan Field with the other two first-round games at Blair Field in Long Beach. “It makes us wish that much more now that we also could have gotten that game Friday night against Santa Barbara too, and we would have finished in a tie for the division,” Horton said.

Santa Barbara (26-28, 15-15) won the series opener, 2-1, but the Gauchos managed to score only one more run in the next two games.

“We got an outstanding effort from all three pitchers today,” Horton said. “And from everyone who pitched this weekend. I feel as good about our pitching right now as I have all season. And our defense was good again. We didn’t make an error all weekend, and you don’t see that very often in college baseball.”

The Titans also got off to a good start on offense Sunday, scoring five runs in the first three innings.

Pete Fukuhara singled and scored on an infield out in the first. Then, in the second, Jerome Alviso beat out a bunt, Chris Beck doubled and both scored on Ryan Owens’ single. The Titans scored two more in the third on hits by C.J. Ankrum and Mike Lamb, a double by Aaron Rowand and an infield out.

Fullerton’s final run came in the eighth on Lamb’s home run, his ninth of the season. All six runs came against Seth Bean (5-8).

The Gauchos got their only run off Duckworth in the fifth when Justin Lehr connected for his second homer of the series.

Duckworth (8-1) came out at the start of the sixth and was replaced by Hild. Hild gave up a single and a walk in the sixth, but a double play got him out of the inning, and the Gauchos managed only one base runner in the next two innings. After Hild retired the first batter in the ninth, Greenlee took over.

“Hild was pitching great, but we wanted to give [Greenlee] a chance to get in there since it was our last game of the regular season, and at home,” pitching coach Dave Serrano said. “He’s our closer, and he’s done a great job for us this season.”

Duckworth was pleased he had no physical problems. “I felt good,” he said. “There was no pain at all, and I thought I pitched well. We tried something a little different by going with more sliders than curves, and I think that helped. I threw a lot of curveballs against them the last time.”

Hild, a starter early in the season before he ran into problems, also was encouraged by another solid effort.

“My arm is back to where it used to be,” he said. “I had a little trouble with mechanics when I first came in, but I was able to come back from it. That might not have happened early in the season. I’ve just tried to build off every outing, and learn from whatever happens.”