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).