June 17, 2007

Familiar matchups will share spotlight at CWS

By Andy Gardiner

OMAHA — The College World Series will look like a regular-season conference doubleheader today when the Big West meets in an elimination game and the Pacific-10 squares off in the winner's bracket.

Four-time champion Cal State-Fullerton and CWS first-timer California-Irvine play Monday afternoon (2 ET, ESPN2) in a meeting of close coaching friends. No. 5 seed Arizona State takes on defending national champion Oregon State Monday night (7 ET, ESPN2).

The Sun Devils ended Irvine's five-game NCAA winning streak with a 5-4 victory Saturday, and OSU snapped Fullerton's five-game streak with a 3-2 win. Arizona State won this year's Pac-10 title, including a three-game sweep at OSU in mid-May.

"I don't know if I've ever seen a better offensive club," Beavers coach Pat Casey said of a Sun Devils lineup hitting .350 and producing more than nine runs a game. "I just suspect that we're a better club than when we faced them the last time."

Irvine coach Dave Serrano played for and coached with Fullerton's George Horton, leaving the Titans to take the Anteaters' job after CSF won the 2004 national title. Irvine won two of three meetings this season.

"It is bittersweet," Horton said of playing Serrano and the Anteaters. "One of the two of us is going home."

Blogging update:

NCAA spokesman Bob Williams says there have been no reported violations of a policy prohibiting play-by-play reports on CWS games on blogs. Williams said neither media nor fans have posted anything "that was brought to our attention" in the first three days. The policy became an issue last weekend when a reporter for the Louisville Courier-Journal had his credential taken away for providing inning-by-inning reports on the paper's website.

•When Louisville and Irvine lost their openers, it extended the streak of losses by first-time CWS participants to seven. The last team to win its Omaha debut was Georgia Tech in 1997.