June 14, 2007

College World Series: UC Irvine convinced it belongs in finals

BY ERIC OLSON

OMAHA, Neb. - With his program in the College World Series for the first time, UC Irvine coach Dave Serrano felt compelled to give a short history lesson Thursday.

"My team wanted me to come up and say we are not Cal Irvine. We're UC Irvine," Serrano said at a news conference. "We do have a Division I baseball team. We're located in south Orange County, south side of Newport Beach."

The Anteaters hope folks know a lot more about them the next week as Division I baseball's national championship event begins its annual run at Rosenblatt Stadium.

Louisville joins UC Irvine as first-time CWS entries. Defending national champion Oregon State and 2006 runner-up North Carolina also are back, marking only the fifth time the previous year's finalists are making a return trip.

UC Irvine is in its sixth year of fielding a baseball team after shutting down the program in 1992 because of state budget cuts. Students passed a referendum increasing student fees in 1999, and the program was up and running again in three years.

The Anteaters went to regionals for the first time in 2004, going two games and out, and Serrano was named head coach a month later after serving as Fullerton's pitching coach for eight years.

"Our whole goal was to get this program some national recognition," Serrano said. "Never in a million years did I think it was going to happen this quick."

UC Irvine knocked perennial power Texas out of regionals this year, then swept Wichita State on the road in the Super Regionals to reach Omaha.

"We didn't throw a sucker punch. We lasted to the last round and got our hand raised, and we were the champion of those two bouts," Serrano said. "We're not here because we got lucky. This team has earned the right to be here."