The Titans have finally broken the curse that they seem to play under at Riverside’s stadium. Prior to this weekend, the CSUF Titans had only won one game at the Highlander’s home. So it was exciting to see the Titans smash that bogey to smithereens today when they not only won the series, but won to the tune of 18-1. For the momentous occasion, Tyler Pill led the defense and notched another win to improve to 5-0 on the season. Tyler pitched for 7.0 innings, giving up 5 hits and no runs. He struck out 6 and pitched 72% strikes. We couldn’t be more proud of our section K pitcher, who by the way is only a Freshman, so we expect great things for Tyler over the next couple years. The comfortable lead that the Titan offense had created gave freshman Colin O’Connell his first appearance on the mound for the Titans. He pitched for an inning and gave up one unearned run, which was set up by an error on the part of Shevis Shima at 2nd base. Shevis made up for the error a couple of plays later by making a spectacular grab and put out.
Ok – let’s talk offense. The game was scoreless until the 3rd when Joe Scott started the top of the 3rd off with a bunt single, followed by a bunt single by Jeff Newman. They both advanced on a wild pitch during Gary Brown’s at bat. Joe Scott scored on a sac fly by Christian Colon and Jeff Newman scored on a single by Josh Fellhauer. While the Titans didn’t know it, that was actually the winning run for the game. Now moving on the the top of the 4th. As we were heading into the 4th, I had the innings mixed up and was asking for a 5 run 5th. I’ll have to make that mistake more often because during the 4th we sent 12 men to the plate and scored 9 runs leaving no one on base. That’s efficient baseball. How did it happen?
Nick Ramirez singled, then Khris Davis doubled. Billy Marcoe singled, scoring Ramirez. Joe Scott got hit by a pitch, loading the bases. Jeff Newman singled, scoring Davis. Gary Brown reached on a fielder’s choice and Newman reached 2nd on an error and then advanced to 3rd while Scott and Marcoe scored. That’s 4 runs and still no out recorded. Christian Colon grounded out, and the runners could not advance, but then Brown reached 3rd and Newman scored on a wild pitch. Josh Fellhauer grounded out for the 2nd out of the inning followed by a Jared Clark walk. Gary Brown scored on a wild pitch. Nick Ramirez got his 2nd single of the inning advancing Clark to 3rd. Davis cleared the bases with his 2nd hit of the inning being a 3-run home run. Marcoe ended the inning by grounding out to the catcher.
Unfortunately for the Highlanders, who couldn’t quite get into the game after that point, the scoring didn’t stop there. All of the Titan starters with the exception of Gary Brown collected one or more hits, and Gary managed to get on base and score twice without getting a free pass. The Titans scored 4 more in the top of the 7th and 3 more in the top of the ninth. Starting with the 7th inning, coach Serrano started subbing starters out to give some of the bench players a chance to get into the game, and it was good to see Joey Siddons, Matt Fahey, and Wes Borba get hits as well as a little playing time.
The Titans improved to 18-4 on the year and are 2-1 in Big West conference play. They head off in a couple days to play the Sun Devils in Arizona for a 2 game series, so we hope the bats will continue to be hot and keep the streak alive. The contest in Arizona should be another battle as both the Titans and the Sun Devils are ranked in the top 5. The Titans currently are ranked one as far as strength of schedule, so we hope they continue to play well against the nations top teams. Go Titans!!
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LK Gardner-Griffie
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