Baseball, Men's Sports, Sports

Long Beach State tops Cal State Fullerton in newest chapter of storied rivalry

Jarren Duran didn’t waste any time in taking out his frustrations of losing to Cal State Fullerton in game three of the NCAA Super Regional at Blair field last June. The first pitch of Friday’s non-conference series opener was driven deep to right field and eventually sailed over the wall, starting the next chapter of this classic rivalry with a literal bang.

“[These programs] have been doing this for a long time,” head coach Troy Buckley said. “You here stories about [Dave Snow] and [George] Horton and Augie [Garrido]. You just take the gloves off and play and [the home run] was a good example of that.”

The leadoff home run was delivered by Titan’s junior ace Colton Eastman, the same man who threw seven shutout innings against the Dirtbags in a 2-1 win that sent Fullerton to Omaha last season.

Duran was mobbed by his teammates when he returned to the dugout. The blow was all the energy Long Beach would need to cruise to a 5-2 win.

“I know Eastman likes to mix his pitches all the time so I thought he was thinking I was taking  [the first pitch],” Duran said. “I was just sitting dead-red fast ball first pitch. It felt good. I’ve never hit a no-doubter like that before.”

Fullerton (8-11) tied the game in the bottom of the first after sophomore shortstop Sahid Valenzuela reached on an infield base hit and score on an error later in the inning.

The Dirtbags (9-13) went on to push across three more runs in Eastman’s seven innings of work. They scored one in the top of the third on after freshman shortstop Santino Rivera double to leadoff the inning and came in to score on a RBI ground out by junior center fielder Clayton Andrews. In the top of the fourth, Long Beach tallied three hits and two more runs thanks to RBIs from freshman Chris Jimenez and Leonard Jones.

“He’s got a lot of big games under his belt and that’s the first loss we were able to saddle with him,” Buckley said. “We just stuck with the plan of trying to handle his fastball.”

Long Beach State sophomore ace Zak Baayoun made a major notch in his belt throwing eight innings and allowing only one unearned run in his first start against Fullerton. He struck out eight batters and only walked one on his way to the win.

“It was a lot of fun tonight,” Baayoun said. “I’m just really happy with the week of work I put in. I’ve been working on my front side and continuing to be more consistent with my pitches.”

Baayouns first test against Long Beach’s cross town rivals went according to plan.

“He’s shown a lot of improvement from last week to this week,” Buckley said. “As far as the ball going down and mixing pitches. He wasn’t flat or up in the zone and he didn’t give up any free opportunities.”

His experience pitching in hostile environments like Texas Christian and Texas A&M this season only helped the blossoming starter in front of 2,503 at Goodwin Field Friday.

“Once you go to A&M, nothing compares,” Baayoun said. “They have a good atmosphere [at CSUF]… and like I’ve said, I like that me against the world feeling when I’m up there.”

Long Beach had a sloppy bottom of the ninth inning commiting three errors and using two pitchers to seal the win. The Titans scored their second run of the game but Long Beach junior closer Chris Rivera was able to convert the 1-out save for his sixth of the season.

The Dirtbags and Titans will finish the series with a 6 p.m. gametime Saturday and a 1 p.m. start on Sunday in Fullerton.

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