John Hanley's wind-blown single to right field with two outs in the 10th
scored Geoff Comfort with the game-winner as No. 16 Cal State
Fullerton rallied to beat Loyola Marymount, 6-5, in a nonconference game
at Goodwin Field Wednesday night.
The Titans improved to 12-8 overall while Loyola Marymount fell to 6-15.
Sean Martin (1-0) picked up his first win, despite allowing the go-ahead
run in the top of the 10th. Vincent Cordova (2-2) was tagged with the
loss. The Titans have won two games this season in their final at bats,
both coming against the Lions.
The Titans trailed, 5-4, heading into the bottom of the 10th, but came
up with three consecutive two-out hits. Shane Costa blooped a 3-2 pitch
to left field to start the rally and Geoff Comfort drilled a triple to
left-center field to score Costa with the tying run. Hanley then hit the
first pitch he saw over the head of right fielder Brady Koch – a
mid-inning defensive replacement – who appeared to misjudge the ball.
The rally made a winner of Martin, who allowed a go-ahead single to Anthony
Santana in the top of the 10th. The rally also extended Fullerton's streak
of consecutive wins when leading after seven innings to 60 games.
The streak appeared in jeopardy when the Lions scored a pair of runs off
All-American closer Chad Cordero in the top of the eighth to tie the game,
4-4. After walking leadoff batter Joe Frazee, Cordero gave up consecutive
bloop singles to Kris Zacuto, Joshua Whitesell and Tommy Perez before
Santana's groundout to first base brought home the tying run.
The Titans took advantage of three Loyola Marymount errors to take a 4-1
lead through five innings. Starting right fielder Christian Campos misplayed
a ball off Costa's bat in the first and third baseman Jonathan Oller added
a throwing error in the frame to account for two runs. Jason Corapci reached
on an error and scored one of his three runs in the third and Costa's
RBI-double in the fifth made it 4-1.
Fullerton's Travis Ingle who made his first career start, allowed a run
on three hits in five innings. He has allowed just one run in 16.2 innings
on the season.
The Titans will play a three-game series at Nevada beginning Friday afternoon
at 2 p.m.
