No. 2 Cal State Fullerton completed their second consecutive Big West
Conference sweep as they defeated Pacific 9-4 behind the bat of Ronnie
Prettyman who drove in five runs in Sunday afternoon’s contest at
Goodwin Field.
With the win the Titans are victorious for the sixth time in their last
seven games and improve to 26-9 overall and 8-1 in Big West Conference
play. In losing the Tigers drop their fourth in their last five outings
and fall to 17-21, 3-6 on the year.
Nine men went to the plate in the bottom of the first for the Titans as
they took advantage of three Pacific miscues to tally an early 5-0 lead
off starting pitcher Brett Manning. Shortstop Anthony Jackson committed
two back-to-back errors on routine grounders to lead off the game to put
Manning (1-4) in a hole from the first batter. Sergio Pedroza and Brett
Pill followed with consecutive RBI-singles with Ronnie Prettyman driving
in two with a double down the right field line. Manning pitched five innings
in the loss, allowing nine runs (four earned), on six Fullerton hits before
being lifted in the sixth inning.
Fullerton starter Scott Sarver (4-2) pitched adequately going the required
5 innings to pick up his fourth victory of the year to win his second
straight decision. Sarver had a rocky first inning that saw Pacific load
the bases with two walks and an error by Justin Turner, but the southpaw
worked out of it, retiring the last two batters in the inning.
Sarver retired the next 11-of -13 before hitting another bump in the fifth
and sixth innings. Ramon Glasgow, Adam Ching and Jackson strung three
hits together in the top of the fifth with Jackson’s being a two
run single up the middle to cut the Titan lead to 5-2.
The Titans bounced back in the bottom half of the fifth scoring four times
highlighted by Ronny Prettyman’s fifth home run of the year to right-center
field driving home three.
Returning to the mound to start his sixth inning of work, Sarver was greeted
with a solo home run by Matt Berezay, and backed up by a double by Will
Brinda drawing Head Coach George Horton to the mound to bring in the relief.
Lauren Gagnier came in to retire the side, but not before allowing an
RBI-double to Dale Hall to bring the score to it’s final resting
place at 9-4.
Freshman Adam Jorgenson retired nine of the 10 batters he faced over his
three innings of work to pick up his second save of the season while fanning
four along the way. The only hit he surrendered was a single up the middle
to Ching with two outs in the top of the ninth.
Fullerton will have a busy week with six games figuring to register in
their season totals by next Sunday. After an off day Monday, the Titans
will head to Malibu to take on the Waves in an afternoon affair (3 p.m.).
Then the Titans will return home for a day of make-ups with USC on Wednesday.
At 5 p.m. The Titans and Trojans will complete a game that was suspended
in the eighth inning due to rain, with another make-up game to be played
approximately 45 minutes following the completion of the first. Thursday,
Fullerton will get on a plane and head to UC Davis for a three-game non-conference
series with the Aggies. Game times are 7 p.m. on Friday night and 1 p.m.
on both Saturday and Sunday.
The Titans will start Jared Clark on Tuesday versus Pepperdine, Adam Jorgenson
on Wednesday night (second game) against USC and the normal rotation of
Ricky Romero, Wes Roemer, and Scott Sarver, Friday trough Sunday respectively
against Davis.
