Titans Will Be by the Bay, 49ers Going South

Cal State Fullerton has won regional baseball championships in such far-flung places as Baton Rouge, La., Stillwater, Okla., and Starkville, Miss., but this week the Titans will be staying as close to home as possible.

Fullerton (38-22-1) was rewarded with a No. 2 seeding in the NCAA West Regional at Stanford behind the No. 1-ranked host team Monday after winning the Big West Conference tournament title Sunday against Long Beach State.

Fullerton will meet West Coast Conference champion Santa Clara (39-18), seeded fifth, in Thursday’s first round.

Long Beach (37-24), stunned by consecutive losses to the Titans on the final day of the conference tournament, was assigned to the South I Regional at Baton Rouge, where defending national champion Louisiana State (48-12) is seeded No. 1. The 49ers were seeded fourth and will face a difficult first-round challenge against third-seeded Oklahoma (39-18), the Big 12 tournament champion.

The Sooners are coached by Larry Cochell, who was at Fullerton during the three years Augie Garrido coached at Illinois.

“Being a No. 2 is a generous seeding from our standpoint,” Fullerton Coach George Horton said. “I think Long Beach and us both could have been No. 3s. It could have just as easily been reversed from what it is if we hadn’t been successful Sunday.”

Long Beach Coach Dave Snow calls the South I “a very, very tough” regional.

“You’ve got your work cut out for you any time you go to the home park of the college program of the ‘90s [Louisiana State],” Snow said. “Oklahoma is a strong, tradition-rich program so we didn’t get any breaks on the draw. We’ve definitely got our work cut out for us.”

Horton thinks it’s possible his team might not have made the field if the Titans hadn’t beaten Nevada, 10-9, Friday in 11 innings. “We could have been two outs away from our season being over,” Horton said. After the victory against Nevada, the Titans came back to defeat Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and advance to Sunday’s final round.

Nevada (38-19) became the third Big West team to make the field, getting one of the 24 at-large berths and being assigned to the Central Regional in Lubbock, Texas, as the fourth-seeded team.

Southern California’s other top teams were all sent out of the region. UCLA (40-18), ranked fourth nationally, was given the No. 1 seeding at the Midwest Regional in Stillwater, where host Oklahoma State is seeded third behind Tennessee. USC (39-18) was seeded second behind host Alabama in the South II regional at Tuscaloosa. Cal State Northridge wasn’t selected despite a 42-20-1 record.

Fullerton, making its 19th regional appearance in 23 years and sixth in a row, will be playing in a West Coast regional for the first time since 1984. That year the Titans won the Fresno State regional, then went on to win the second of three College World Series championships, defeating Texas in the title game.

Horton has mixed emotions about being assigned to the Stanford regional. “It’s good that it’s close enough that the parents and friends of our players will have a better opportunity to come to the games,” Horton said. “But you also worry about the distractions of that sometimes too.”

For the first time in several years, Fullerton will be going into a regional with teams the Titans have played during the regular season. Fullerton played a three-game series against Stanford (39-18) at the beginning of the season, with the Titans winning two of three games. “But both of us are different clubs than we were then,” Horton said.

Stanford won the South Division of the Pacific 10 Conference this season, finishing ahead of UCLA and USC, but lost to Washington, which finished first in the North Division, in the three-game playoff series for the automatic NCAA berth.

Fullerton also played two games this season at Fresno State, the fourth-seeded team at Stanford, in late February. Each team won a game.

Horton said he respects what Santa Clara did in winning the West Coast Conference title. “They handled Pepperdine, and we had our problems with them this season,” Horton said. Fullerton lost three of four games to the Waves.

The Titans, however, have won 15 of their last 18 and are ranked 20th this week by Baseball America and 16th by Collegiate Baseball. Long Beach State is ranked 23rd by Baseball America and 24th in the other poll.

Snow expects his team to come back strong.

“My feeling is they’ll be excited to get out on the road,” Snow said. “We haven’t played well at home and that’s been one of our problems most of the season, especially late in the season.”

Long Beach is 17-11 at Blair Field.

“All parts of our game have to click for us to be a factor in this thing,” Snow said. “We have to pitch well, we have to hit well and we have to play good defense. We’re just not strong enough in any one of those three areas to overcome any deficiencies in any area. We know it can be done because we’ve done it at times this year. We just haven’t done it all the time.”

Times staff writer Jason Reid contributed to this story.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

NCAA Baseball Tournament

Division I regionals beginning Thursday. Times Pacific.

WEST

At Stanford

Texas A&M; (39-20) vs. Fresno St. (37-26), 11 a.m.; CS Fullerton (38-22-1) vs. Santa Clara (39-18), 3 p.m.; Northeastern (33-17) at Stanford (39-18), 7 p.m.

MIDWEST

At Stillwater, Okla.

UCLA (40-18-1) vs. Harvard (32-14), 9 a.m.; Tennessee (41-17) vs. Ohio (43-16), 1 p.m.; Stetson (37-24-1) at Oklahoma St. (43-17), 5 p.m.

SOUTH I

At Baton Rouge, La.

Oklahoma (39-18) vs. Long Beach St. (37-24), 9 a.m.; South Alabama (40-17) vs. Houston (40-21), 1 p.m.; North Carolina-Greensboro (44-15) at Louisiana State (48-12), 5:30 p.m.

SOUTH II

At Tuscaloosa, Ala.

North Carolina St. (41-18) vs. Wichita St. (51-16). 9 a.m.; USC (39-18) vs. Virginia Tech (33-26), 1 p.m.; Troy St. (36-22) at Alabama (48-12), 5 p.m.

ATLANTIC

At Miami

Arizona St. (36-20) vs. Florida International (42-19), 9 a.m.; Florida (38-22) vs. St. John’s (35-15), 12:45 p.m.; Richmond (33-24) at Miami (44-15), 4:30 p.m.

MIDEAST

At Starkville, Miss.

Georgia Tech (44-13) vs. Tennessee Tech (38-21), 10 a.m.; Southwestern Louisiana (43-16) vs. Washington (43-18), 2 p.m.; Ohio St. (42-16) at Mississippi St. (41-18), 6 p.m.

CENTRAL

At Lubbock, Texas

Clemson (40-21) vs. Nevada (38-19), 9 a.m.; Rice (43-14) vs. Southwest Missouri State (33-23), 1 p.m.; Southwest Texas State (36-24) at Texas Tech (46-12), 5 p.m.

EAST

At Tallahassee, Fla.

Central Florida (40-22) vs. South Florida (37-22), 8 a.m.; Auburn (45-14) vs. Western Carolina (41-18), noon; Marist (32-17) at Florida St. (46-15), 4 p.m.

Note--Regional winners qualify for College World Series, May 30-June 7, Omaha, Neb.