Romero Corrals Mustangs for 10th Win May 6, 2005– San Luis Obispo, Calif.
Box Score
Junior southpaw Ricky Romero (10-4) was just good enough Friday night,
as he led the Cal State Fullerton to a 3-1 victory over Cal Poly in a
Big West conference tilt at Baggett Stadium. The win was Romero’s
10th of the season, the 2nd straight season that he was notched double
digits in victories. Cal Poly got an ironman performance from their ace
Garret Olson, as he went the distance giving up just 5 hits and 3 runs,
but picked up the loss, dropping him to 10-3 on the season.
Cal State Fullerton improves to 35-11 on the year, and a conference best
12-1, while Cal Poly drops to 30-15, and 8-2 in conference.
Small ball was the key to victory for Fullerton, as they manufactured
all of their runs in the first 2 innings. Trevor Mortensen led the game
off with a single then was promptly sacrificed down to second by Blake
Davis. Sergio Pedroza was then hit by a pitch, and Danny Dorn singled
home Davis, advancing Pedroza to third. Evan MacArthur then lined a 2-1
pitch into left to score Pedroza giving the Titans a 2-0 lead.
The second inning was more of the same as Blake Davis reached on an error,
John Curtis laid down a sacrifice bunt to move Davis to second, and Trevor
Mortensen singled up the middle to score him and conclude the Titan offense
extending the lead to 3-0. The Titans would get just one more hit on the
night, a double by Davis in the 4th, but couldn’t punch him across
as both Curtis and Mortensen grounded out to the shortstop.
The lone run of the night for the Mustangs came in the 4th when they strung
together 3 straight singles to open up the inning, the latter being a
blooper to right off the bat of designated hitter J.J. Owen. Romero then
got Brett Berglund to ground into a 5-3 inning ending doube play. Cal
Poly had their opportunities all night long as they had a baserunner in
every inning, but Ricky Romero and the Titan defense made the plays when
they had to, highlighted by a 2 out pickoff of Brett Berglund to end a
threat in the sixth.
Romero struck out Brandon Roberts to open up the eighth, before Vinnie
Pestano came on in relief. Jimmy Van Ostrand promptly greeted him with
a double off the left field wall, before Pestano got Kyle Blumenthal to
ground out and struck out Josh Lansford to end the inning, stranding Van
Ostrand at third. Pestano then struck out two in the ninth, to notch his
9th save of the season.
The top two teams in the Big West will be back at it tomorrow evening,
as Wes Roemer (5-1) goes for the Cal-State Fullerton and Jimmy Shull (6-5)
goes for Cal Poly. Game time is set for 6:00pm at Baggett Stadium.
