College baseball: Titans topple UCI
ANTEATER BALLPARK - Host UC Irvine bounced back from a 4-0 deficit
to take a 5-4 lead in the rubber game of a pivotal Big West Conference
baseball series Sunday against Cal State Fullerton. But the Titans scored
the game’s final eight runs to claim a 12-5 triumph that puts the
perennial Big West powerhouse (31-16, 12-6 in conference) back into
second place, a half-game ahead of the Anteaters (29-20, 10-5).
After Fullerton, ranked No. 18 by Baseball America, opened the game
with four runs on UCI freshman left-hander Glenn Swanson, the hosts
plated a run in the first on Chris Klemm’s sacrifice fly.
Trailing, 4-1, in the third, Klemm, UCI’s junior right fielder, belted
a three-run homer to key a four-run rally that gave the Anteaters their
only lead.
But Fullerton scored in each of the next four innings to hand UCI only
its second loss in its last nine games.
Fullerton, which defeated the Anteaters Friday, 13-5, before falling
to Coach John Savage’s surprising upstarts Saturday, 9-7, needed the win
to reclaim second place in the Big West. The win also helped the Titans
avoid losing their first conference road series since 2000.
Horwitz, a junior center fielder and leadoff man, went 3 for 5 to pace
the Anteaters’ eight-hit attack. No other UCI hitter had more than one
hit as Fullerton senior right-hander Jordan DeJong worked into the eighth
inning to record his eighth victory in 11 decisions this spring.
Swanson, who came in with a 3.22 ERA, yielded eight hits and nine
earned runs, before exiting in the sixth. His ERA swelled to 3.88.
Chris Stringfellow hit a first-inning grand slam, his only hit, and
drove in a career-high five runs, while Jason Corapci (3 for 5 with a
homer, two doubles and two RBIs) and David Fischer (4 for 5 with a homer,
double and two RBIs) also paced the Titans’ 13-hit attack.
Stringfellow’s slam was the first for a Titan in more than two years.
UCI visits San Diego State Tuesday at 6 p.m. in a makeup date of a
game originally postponed due to rain.
BIG WEST CONFERENCE
Cal State Fullerton 12, UC Irvine 5
Cal State Fullerton 400 131 300 - 12 13 1
UC Irvine 104 000 000 - 5 8 0
DeJong, Cordero (8) and Pilittere; Swanson, Tripoli (6), French (7),
Koehler (9) and Miller. W - DeJong, 8-3. L - Swanson, 7-4. 2B - Fischer
(F), Corapci (F) 2. HR - Stringfellow (F), Corapci (F), Klemm (UCI).
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