June 14 , 2007

UC Irvine closing on neighbor Cal State-Fullerton

By Andy Gardiner

Until this week, the gap between the baseball programs at Cal State-Fullerton and California-Irvine was 100 times wider than the 20 miles between the campuses. Fullerton is baseball royalty, a four-time national champion. UC-Irvine folded its team for a decade and restored it only after a student referendum nine years ago.

But today the Big West Conference colleagues stand side-by-side on their game's grandest stage, two of eight teams at the College World Series in Omaha.

"I'm tickled to death for all of them. I love those guys," Fullerton coach George Horton says of UC-Irvine. "I have great respect for what they've accomplished."

Horton and Anteaters coach Dave Serrano have been friends and associates for almost a quarter-century. Serrano was Horton's assistant at Cerritos College for three years and became his pitching coach and recruiting coordinator at Fullerton when Horton was named head coach in 1997. Serrano was at Horton's side when the Titans won the 2004 national title. He took the Irvine job the next month.

"It's ironic and pleasing to me that my first trip to Omaha as a head coach is with George, who is making about his 100th," Serrano says. "That makes it pretty neat."

Irvine had never won a regional or super regional game before this year but was 5-0 on the road, eliminating Texas and Wichita State.

"It's supposed to be a step-by-step process to get here, but we fast-tracked that thinking," Serrano says. "We got thrown into the fire and came out unscathed."

The Anteaters won NCAA Division II titles in 1973 and '74 but dropped their program in 1992 after the State Legislature called for budget cuts. Needing a 60% majority to pass, 62% of the student body voted in favor of a $99 assessment to restore baseball in 1999. Led by athletics director Dan Guerrero and coach John Savage, both now at UCLA, Irvine was back on the field in 2002, playing in Division I.

The Anteaters were 31-25 in Serrano's first season in 2004 and made the NCAA tournament last year with a 36-24 record, going 0-2 in the regionals. They are 45-15-1 going into Omaha, winning 14 of their last 15.

The keys have been pitching and defense. The staff ERA is 3.69, and the entire infield earned all-conference honors. The Anteaters allowed more than two runs once in the postseason behind Scott Gorgen (12-2, 2.68 ERA) and Wes Etheridge (12-4, 2.49). They are backed by NCAA career saves leader Blair Erickson (53, 13 this season).

"My biggest fear was the youth and inexperience of our pitchers. Our position players were light years ahead of them," Serrano says. "But guys began to find their roles, and by April I thought we had a team that could do this. Everything that's come before has prepared us for this moment."

Fullerton is in the Series for the 15th time. But no coach was more nervous before the NCAA selection show than Horton. After finishing fifth in the Big West, he wondered if the Titans would be left out of the 64-team field for the first time since 1991.

"We had a miserable year (33-23 regular season, 10-11 conference) by our standards," he says. "We didn't have great credentials. Even I thought this was a year we might not make it."

But an aggressive early schedule that included Rice, Arizona and Stanford carried weight with the selection committee. The Titans weathered a rash of midseason injuries and went into the postseason with a renewed focus, sweeping five games.

"It was a resurrection for us, an opportunity to play in a new season where everybody starts 0-0," Horton says. "The one constant was that our pitching got better each week, and now we're starting to hit again."

Wes Roemer (11-6, 3.24) and Jeff Kaplan (11-3, 3.16) top a pitching staff with an ERA of 3.76. Clark Hardman, a starter on the 2004 title team as a freshman, is batting .391 in a lineup that finds a way to manufacture runs.

"This reminds me of our '04 team when we hit .240 and won with dominant pitching and good defense," Horton says. "I can't say I expected this, but we knew we're capable if things fell into place, and they did."

BIG WEST DOES BASEBALL

The Big West qualified half its eight teams for the NCAA tournament and two have reached the College World Series -- Cal State-Fullerton and California-Irvine.

The Atlantic Coast Conference started with seven, and one survived. None of the six Big 12 schools that began the tournament is still playing.

"Make no mistake about it, the Big West was very good and very deep this season," Cal State-Fullerton coach George Horton says. "Our conference hasn't gotten the respect nationally it may have deserved in the past. Irvine is helping change that."

Formed in 1969 as an all-California conference with an emphasis on football, the Big West had grown to 12 members in 1997 and stretched from the Mexican to Canadian borders. The six schools out of state (Nevada, Boise State, Idaho, Utah State, North Texas and New Mexico State) played football; the six California schools did not.

"In 1999 we decided to get out of the football business," conference Commissioner Dennis Farrell says. "Now we are the only one of 31 Division I conferences fully contained within the boundaries of one state."

Cal State-Northridge and UC-Riverside joined in 2000. The Big West will reach nine members when UC-Davis joins this summer.

The conference believes it can challenge for national titles in soccer, volleyball (UC-Irvine won this year's men's title) and especially baseball.

The league had 43 players taken this month in the Major League Baseball draft.

"There are 44,000 high school baseball players in the state of California, and they have grown up playing the game," Farrell says. "Our schools don't have to go far to recruit quality players, and I think the NCAA tournament has shown that."