California dreamin’
OMAHA, Neb. – Longtime friends Dave Serrano and George Horton shared an embrace moments after UC Irvine had beaten Cal State Fullerton 5-4 in the longest game in College World Series history Monday.
The two coaches just as easily could have collapsed together in exhaustion after a tense elimination game between Serrano’s upstart Anteaters and his mentor’s tournament-tested Titans.
“I told him I loved him and thanks for everything,” Serrano said. “He said. ‘I’m proud of you. Continue to move on and win this thing.’ “
Bryan Petersen’s run-scoring single to center field in the bottom of the 13th inning ended the 5 hour, 40 minute affair and sent the Titans home after two games for the first time in nine CWS appearances since 1990.
Meanwhile, the Anteaters (46-16-1) play on in their first trip to Omaha, meeting Arizona State today. Fullerton (38-25) was knocked out after losing for the third time in four games with the Anteaters this season.
The 97th meeting of the neighborhood rivals came more than 1,500 miles away from their Orange County campuses, on the game’s biggest stage.
It was emotional on a number of fronts.
Serrano pitched for Horton at Cerritos College and later served under him there as pitching coach. Serrano later coached under Horton at Fullerton before taking the UC Irvine head coaching job in 2004.
“The bad news is I had to say goodbye to my mentor, coach, friend, my second father, a guy I love a lot,” Serrano said. “That’s the toughest part about it, seeing his team eliminated. I wish our win hadn’t been at their expense, but we went into this knowing one of us would be happy and one of us would be sad.”
The time of the game beat the old CWS mark for longest game – set in 1981 by Oklahoma State and Arizona State – by 40 minutes.
Tension ran high, with a CWS record eight batters getting hit by pitches.
Despite committing a season-high six errors, UC Irvine came back three times to tie the Titans before overtaking them in a tense 13th inning that had Horton ejected for arguing a hit batsman call.
Petersen’s winning hit came after Fullerton left fielder Josh Fellhauer had thrown out Taylor Holiday at home plate.
Holiday appeared to lean into a Bryan Harris pitch leading off the bottom of the 13th and was awarded first base by home-plate umpire David Buck. A steamed Horton argued and was tossed after Holiday was hit by a pitch for a third time in the game.
“It wasn’t about him not moving,” Horton said. “He stuck his arm out.”
Holiday tried to score from second on Matt Morris’ single. Fellhauer came charging in, picked up the ball and threw it on a line to catcher John Curtis, who blocked the plate and easily put the tag on Holiday.
Petersen followed with his hit to center, which scored Cody Cipriano from third. After Petersen touched first base, his teammates rushed out of the dugout and mobbed him in a dogpile.
Petersen also was the batter who doubled in the winning run in the bottom of the ninth in UC Irvine’s 3-2 super regional-clinching victory over Wichita State on June 10.
“That hit helped me a lot today,” Petersen said. “I was more nervous before I hit in Wichita than I was here. I knew I had done it before. This is a big time of year, and I’m just trying to enjoy it.”
Oregon St. 12, Arizona St. 6
Mike Stutes and three relievers combined to hold one of the nation’s top hitting and scoring teams to seven hits, and the Beavers revved up their own offense to beat the Sun Devils in the College World Series.
The defending champion Beavers, who had seven hits in a 3-2 win over Fullerton on Saturday, scored every inning until the seventh and finished with 18 hits. Mike Lissman went 3 for 4 with a three-run homer and four RBIs. Chris Hopkins, Joey Wong and Jason Ogata also had three hits apiece, and Jordan Lennerton homered.
The performance was a stark contrast to last month’s Pac-10 series in Corvallis, Ore. The Sun Devils swept the three games, limiting the Beavers to a total of nine hits.
The Beavers (46-18) play Wednesday against the winner of an elimination game between UC Irvine and Arizona State (49-14). Irvine or ASU would have to beat the Beavers twice to keep them out of the best-of-3 championship round that starts Saturday against the Bracket 1 winner.
Stutes (11-4), making his third career CWS start and winning for the second time, allowed only two singles until he left with the bases loaded in the seventh.
Brian Flores (11-2) took the loss for Arizona State.