Dustin Miller pitched six solid innings in his collegiate debut and Danny
Dorn (Miller's fomer Diamond Bar High teammate) blasted a three-run homer
as No. 13 Cal State Fullerton stunned third-ranked Stanford by completing
a three-game sweep with an 8-2 win at Goodwin Field Sunday afternoon.
The Titans (3-0) notched their first sweep against the Cardinal since
1983 and dealt Stanford its first sweep by any team since April 11-13,
1997 (vs. Arizona State), a span of 77 series. The Titans also started
the season with three wins for the first time since opening with the sweep
of Stanford in 1983. A Goodwin Field series record crowd of 8,194 took
in the action over the weekend, including 2,238 on Sunday.
Miller (1-0), a redshirt freshman out of Diamond Bar, scattered four hits
and allowed just one run in six innings to pick up the win. Freshman Ricky
Romero made his collegiate debut in relief and threw two innings of one-hit
ball before Chad Cordero took over in the ninth.
Fullerton, which had lost 13 of its past 15 meetings against Stanford
coming into the series, went down quietly in the first inning for the
first time in the series, but the Titans erupted for six runs off Stanford's
Ryan McCally (0-1) in the second. Richie Burgos reached on a fielding
error by Jonny Ash to open the frame and moved to second on a single through
the left side by Kyle Boyer. That brought up Dorn, who blasted a 1-0 offering
high over the right field wall for a three-run homer. Another fielding
error opened the door for three more runs with Sergio Pedroza tripling
in a run and Justin Smyres and Shane Costa both collecting RBI-singles.
That was more than enough for Miller and company. Miller allowed a solo
homer to Sam Fuld with two outs in the fifth, but aside from that, did
not allow a runner to reach second base in his final four innings of work.
P.J. Pilittere's RBI-double that caromed off the first-base bag and down
the right-field line plated another Titan run in the sixth and Pedroza
followed with his second RBI-hit of the day, a single through the right
side.
Fullerton will travel to Fresno next weekend to help launch the Mike Batesole
era. The Bulldogs open the season at UC Irvine this week, but will play
their home opener Friday night against the Titans at 6:35 p.m.
