October 28, 2007

Hart's Hurler Chooses Titans

By Grant Marek
Signal Staff Writer

The Michael Montgomery sweepstakes has a winner.

Saturday, the Hart High pitcher verbally committed to Cal State Fullerton, spurning both Arizona and Oregon in favor of a Titans team that made its 15th College World Series appearance in the spring.

"Fullerton is such a good program, it was hard to turn them down," the Indians senior said.

Montgomery, a 6-foot-4 power-pitching left-hander, could prove to be the prize recruit of the Fullerton freshman class of 2008. The Indians hurler was recently tabbed the No. 42 senior in the country according to Baseball America.

"There were a lot of people interested in his skills," said Hart baseball head coach Jim Ozella. "He's a got a way big upside. There's a lot of people really excited about him on the college and pro level."

And with good reason.

Montgomery throws three pitches for strikes and has a fastball that creeps into the low 90s. He finished his junior season with a team-high 62 strikeouts in 56 2/3 innings of work.

"I think one of the big things he was most interested in was going to a program that will have an opportunity of going to the College World Series," Ozella said. "Somebody who is a perennial winner."

He may have found it in Fullerton.

The Titans have won four NCAA College World Series champions, including most recently in 2004.

Despite a 38-25 mark last season, the program's lowest since 1989, the Titans turned an at-large berth into the NCAA Tournament into an improbable CWS appearance.

Fullerton's long-time head coach George Horton, a two-time National Coach of the Year, left the Titans during the offseason to take over the University of Oregon's newly reinstated baseball program and has since been replaced by Dave Serrano.

Serrano, who pitched for Fullerton in 1986, rejoins the Titans after a seven-year stint from 1997-2004 as a Fullerton pitching coach and recruitment coordinator.

The Titans' fifth head coach compiled a 114-66-1 record with UC Irvine in three seasons, including the Anteaters first College World Series appearance in 2007.

Both coaches heavily recruited Montgomery, but while at their former schools.

"I might have been leaning toward Irvine before," Montgomery said.

Montgomery becomes the third Indian to verbally commit to play college baseball in the past two weeks following Bryan Lucas and Jenzen Torres, who both committed to Division II Cal Poly Pomona.

The decision ends a lengthy recruitment process for Montgomery, one Ozella compared to former Hart slugger Chris Valaika, a 2006 fifth-round Major League Baseball draft pick who made a brief appearance with the Cincinnati Reds during the spring.

"I'm glad he finalized the process," Ozella said. "A lot of times it wears on you, with all the phone calls and people following you to games."

"It's a huge weight off my shoulders," Montgomery added. "I was getting calls from those guys, they were begging me. Had to keep telling them I didn't know. Finally I can say I'm going to Fullerton."

Montgomery went 4-3 as a junior in 2007 with a 3.46 ERA. He participated in the prestigious Area Code Games at Long Beach State University during the summer and was also an All-Santa Clarita Valley boys basketball first team selection last season.

He'll follow in the footsteps of Hart graduate John Curtis, a Fullerton alum who was selected by the Chicago White Sox in the 14th round of the 2007 MLB draft.