Dave Serrano Gets His First Crack at the Long Beach-Fullerton
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CSTV: Print Story Page 1 of 5 [ Print | Close ] It All Comes Down to This...Again Titans-49ers series this weekend has automatic berth and national seed implications on the line Dave Serrano gets his first crack at the coachLong Beach-Fullerton (mattbrownphoto.com) rivalry as head May 22, 2008 Complete Release in PDF Format THIS WEEK Tuesday, May 20, 2008 vs. UCLA (Goodwin Field), Win, 12-8 Friday, May 23, 2008 vs. Long Beach St. (Blair Field), 6:30 p.m Saturday, May 24, 2008 vs. Long Beach St. (Blair Field), 6:30 p.m. Sunday, May 25, 2008 vs. Long Beach St. (Blair Field), 1 p.m. FOLLOW THE TITANS: Every Titan baseball game can be heard live on fullertontitans.com. Just click the "listen here" icon on the right of the home page and enjoy every pitch as it happens. And for your viewing pleasure, the Big West Conference will be again providing subscription-based video streams of every Titan home game and Big West Conference game at BigWest.TV. And where technology permits, you can follow the Titan games via CSTV's GameTracker. Just follow the links from the schedule page to find the GameTracker interface. PROBABLE PITCHING MATCH-UPS: Friday at Long Beach State CSF: RHP, Jeff Kaplan, 10-1, 4.13 ERA LB: RHP, Andrew Liebel, 8-2, 1.74 ERA Saturday at Long Beach State CSF: RHP, Daniel Renken, 5-5, 3.82 ERA LB: RHP, Jake Thompson, 2-5, 4.48 ERA Sunday at Long Beach State CSF: RHP, Cory Arbiso, 11-2, 4.15 ERA LB: RHP, Vance Worley, 6-3, 4.55 ERA http://www.cstv.com/library/story/print/print_story.html 5/27/2008 CSTV: Print Story Page 2 of 5 BATTER UP: After 12 weeks of a new, compressed schedule; with a new defending conference champion and better depth throughout the standings, the Big West Conference baseball race still comes down to Fullerton vs. Long Beach. The Titans visit Blair Field this weekend for a 3-game series that will decide the conference championship and the automatic berth into the NCAA Tournament. Fullerton has a 1-game lead so needs only one win to clinch a tie for the title but two wins to clinch the automatic berth. UC Santa Barbara could make it a tri-championship if the Gauchos sweep at UC Irvine and Long Beach beats Fullerton twice. That scenario would give Long Beach the automatic berth based on tie-breakers. Fullerton last week swept three games from San Diego State to continue its late-season climb in the five national polls including a No. 6 ranking by Baseball America, which didn't have Fullerton in its pre-season poll and had UCLA as No. 1. The Bruins visited Goodwin Field Tuesday night and didn't have enough as the Titans beat them 12-8, and now have to face USC in a weekend series which both teams might need to get into the 64-team bracket. LAST WEEK: The Titans got their final home weekend series off to a great start on Thursday by beating heralded San Diego State right-hander Stephen Strasburg, 4-3. Jared Clark hit the first home run the sophomore allowed in his collegiate career for a 2-0 first- inning lead and Dustin Garneau added a 2-run double. Jeff Kaplan pitched out of numerous jams and left with a 4-1 lead. Michael Morrison and Adam Jorgenson bailed out an ineffective Jason Dovel to preserve the win. The next two wins were much easier. Daniel Renken got plenty of run support and excellent relief from Travis Kelly and Ryan Ackland to win Friday night, 10-3. Erik Komatsu continued his torrid Friday hitting with a 2-for-3 night and a team-high 3 RBI. Josh Fellhauer had 4 hits. Cory Arbiso ended the Saturday night run of misfortune with 7 innings of 2-run baseball in an 8-5 win to cap the series. Seniors Jon Wilhite and Nolan Bruyninckx had memorable performances on "Senior Day." Wilhite had 4 hits and 5 RBI and Bruyninckx got a standing ovation after his first inning of work on the mound all season, a scoreless eighth. NCAA PLAYOFF INFORMATION: Regional Sites Announced: Sunday, May 25 on ESPN2 at 4 p.m. PT 64-Team Field Announcement: Monday, May 26 on ESPN at 9:30 a.m. PT Super Regional Announcements: Monday, June 2 at 8 p.m. Pacific on NCAA.com (all Super Regionals will be televised by ESPN) CWS Game Times: Announced on Monday, June 9 on ESPN, Time TBA VERSUS LONG BEACH STATE: The Titans hold a 107-56 all-time series record over Long Beach State at the Division I level dating back to the 1975 season. The two teams have met just one time in the postseason back in 2002 when the 49ers eliminated the Titans, 4-0, from the Stanford Regional. That was the last time the Titans failed to reach a Super Regional. The Titans have lost the last two meetings with the 49ers, both coming at Goodwin Field last year to wrap up the regular season. The 49ers beat the Titans 10-6 and 11-8, to hand Fullerton its fourth consecutive Big West Conference series loss. The Titans won the first game 7-6. In the 2007 non-conference series, Fullerton took two out of three from Long Beach at Blair Field by scores of 7-4, 3-4 (14), 7-5. Over the last five years, Cal State Fullerton has posted a 12-3 record over Long Beach State at Blair Field as opposed to an 8-6 record at Goodwin Field. The Titans finished the George Horton era with a 41-29 overall record over the 49ers in 11 seasons. Over that span, Fullerton was 18-16 at home, a 23-12 record on the road and an 0-1 mark in neutral territory (Stanford Regional, 2002). In the second game of last year's six-game series with Long Beach (Mar. 24, 2007), the Titans and 49ers locked horns for 5 hours and 43 minutes in a 14-innign game with the Titans losing on a Steve Tinoco game-winning single off Nolan Bruyninckx. BIG WEST TRIVIA: In the last 10 season, Cal State Fullerton (5.5) and Long Beach State (2) have won all but 2.5 of the Big West Conference baseball championships. The exceptions? Cal State Northridge won the League outright in 2002, UC Riverside won it all in 2007, and Nevada Shared it with Cal State Fullerton in 2000. http://www.cstv.com/library/story/print/print_story.html 5/27/2008 CSTV: Print Story Page 3 of 5 ONE SMALL STEP: With Tuesday night's win over UCLA Dave Serrano won his 150th game since becoming a head coach in 2005. Serrano has averaged 37 wins a season in his first four years as head coach with UC Irvine and now Fullerton. He picked up victory No. 100 last year in a 4-3 triumph over Pacific at Klein Family Field in Stockton while with Irvine. Dave Serrano Head Coaching Milestones 50th Career Win: April 8, 2006 vs. Cal State Fullerton (2-0) as UC Irvine head coach 100th Career Win: May 12, 2007, at Pacific (4-3) as UC Irvine head coach 150th Career Win: May 20, 2008 vs. UCLA (12-8) as Fullerton head coach QUICK HITS: • The Titans hit four home runs on Tuesday against the UCLA Bruins, the fourth time this year the club has blasted four in a game. Dustin Garneau, Christina Colon, Jared Clark and Joel Weeks each lost a ball in the Titans' 12-8 win. • The Titans finished up the regular season with a 23-7 mark in games at Goodwin Field and drew an average of 2001 fans over the 30 games. The highest attendance of the year was 2,346 on Apr. 27 against UC Davis. • Christian Colon, Joel Weeks and Erik Komatsu are currently pacing the Titans with five-game hitting streaks. • Freshman Gary Brown and Christian Colon have each tied or broken freshman marks for a Cal State Fullerton player. Brown is tield with Dante Powell (1992) with the record for stolen bases (19) by a freshman. Colon broke the record held by Jack Jones (1994) for the most sacrifice bunts by a freshman, and comes into the weekend with 18 sac-bunts. • The Titans are perfect when leading late in games in 2008. When the Titans hold the lead after 6 innings, they are 30-0. They get better as the game gets later, they are 32-0 when leading after 7, and 34-0 when leading after 8. COLON, FELLHAUER ACCEPT USA INVITE: USA Baseball announced May 8 that Cal State Fullerton sophomore outfielder Josh Fellhauer and freshman shortstop Christian Colon have accepted invitations to the 2008 National Team Trials to be held June 11-23 throughout the northeast and southeast United States. Fellhauer (Rancho Cucamonga, Calif/Rancho Cucamonga High School) and Colon (Corona, Calif/Canyon High School) are two of 12 colligate player to have already accepted invitations and will be part of 32 of the nation's best collegiate athletes vying for 22 National Team roster spots. Cal State Fullerton has been one of USA Baseball's major suppliers of talent over the years, having produced five Olympians, while sending 17 players to the U.S. National Team. The last two Cal State Fullerton products to don the Red White and Blue were Wes Roemer and Kurt Suzuki in 2006.