Mike Martinez picked up his sixth win and Ryan Schreppel threw four shutout
innings to notch his first career save as Cal State Fullerton completed
a sweep of No. 21 UC Irvine with a 7-3 win at Anteater Ballpark Sunday
afternoon.
Fullerton, which improved to 33-20 overall and 16-2 in conference play,
needs just one win in its three-game series at Long Beach State next weekend
to clinch outright its first conference title since 2001. UC Irvine fell
to 31-17-1 overall and 8-10 in conference play and dropped into fifth
place.
The sweep was the Titans' first over a ranked team on the road since they
swept No. 4 Miami in Coral Gables, Fla. in 2001. The Titans' last sweep
over a ranked team at home was against No. 3 Stanford to open the 2003
season.
Martinez (6-2) allowed just two earned runs in five innings before Schreppel
hurled the final four innings, scattering just two hits. Irvine starter
Justin Cassel fell to 5-4.
The Titans, who never trailed in the series and outscored the Anteaters,
21-4, grabbed a 2-0 lead in the second after Neil Walton sacrificed a
pair of runners into scoring position for Ronnie Prettyman, who banged
a two-run single into left.
The Anteaters got single runs in the second and third innings to tie the
game, 2-2, before Fullerton got two more runs in the fifth on an RBI-single
by Clark Hardman and a safety squeeze bunt by Danny Dorn.
Irvine kept it close with an unearned run in the bottom of the fifth,
but the Titans opened up a comfortable lead in the seventh. Kurt Suzuki
plated the first run on a grounder to short that was mishandled and Dorn
followed with a two-run single to give the Titans a 7-3 cushion.
Justin Turner went 3-for-5 with a pair of runs for the Titans, Prettyman
was 2-for-4 with two RBI and Dorn drove in three runs. Kurt Suzuki and
Hardman also had a pair of hits each.
Fullerton's season-ending series at Long Beach begins Friday night at
6:30 p.m.
