Titans move one win from CWS championship series

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Posted 5:18AM on Tuesday, June 22, 2004

OMAHA, NEBRASKA - Cal State Fullerton strong-armed another opponent at the College World Series. Ricky Romero scattered nine hits and struck out seven in throwing the Titans' second straight complete game and leading their 6-3 victory over Miami on Monday night. Romero's 139-pitch performance followed Jason Windsor's three-hitter Saturday in Fullerton's CWS opener against South Carolina. ``Both of them are as good as anyone out here,'' Miami coach Jim Morris said. ``The secret is getting into their bullpen. Not many people get into their bullpen when those guys are throwing.'' Windsor and Romero pitched the first back-to-back complete games at the CWS since Georgia's Dave Fleming and Mike Rebhan did it in 1990. ``I just stuck to my game,'' Romero said. ``I didn't read any scouting reports. If I was going to give myself a chance to win, it was going to be by me throwing strikes.'' Felipe Garcia went 4-for-4 and Ronnie Prettyman drove in two runs for Fullerton, which plays Wednesday against the survivor of a Tuesday elimination game between Miami and South Carolina. Fullerton has won its first two games at the CWS for the second straight year and gained the inside track to the best-of-three championship series. The Titans failed to reach the final round last year after losing twice to Stanford. ``Whether it's South Carolina or Miami, we still have a lot of work to do to win this bracket,'' Titans coach George Horton said. ``I guarantee you we won't assume this is going to be easy.'' The Titans (44-21) have won seven straight and 29 of their last 34 games. The Hurricanes (50-12) saw their 13-game win streak end. Romero (13-4) encountered trouble only once when the Hurricanes had the potential tying run on second base in the seventh inning. Miami's J.D. Cockroft (9-5) struggled for the second year in a row in the CWS. He lasted only 3 2-3 innings his shortest outing in 12 starts and gave up nine hits and five runs. He fell victim to four Miami errors. In a 13-2 loss to Texas last year, he allowed 10 hits and 10 runs and his teammates committed five errors in 3 1-3 innings. ``It's frustrating, but at the same time we had a chance to tie it and to break through against (Romero),'' Cockroft said. ``Hats off to Cal State Fullerton. They capitalized on our errors and put up some runs.'' The Titans converted two hits and three errors into three runs in the second inning and scored single runs in the third and fourth on base hits by Bobby Andrews and Garcia. ``The defense really killed us,'' Morris said. ``With that said, we still had a chance to tie it up in the seventh inning if we had gotten a base hit with our three and four guys up.'' The Hurricanes pulled to 5-3 with none out in the seventh when Sanchez singled and scored on Richard Giannotti's triple off the wall in the right-field corner. Roger Tomas followed with a run-scoring single up the middle. But Romero got Ryan Braun to fly out and Jim Burt, the Hurricanes' top hitter, to ground out to end the inning. ``I wasn't getting tired in the seventh,'' Romero said. ``My mechanics were off and I got back to staying on top of the ball and throwing strikes.'' Fullerton scored its final run in the seventh on Prettyman's single. Brian Barton led the Hurricanes with three hits.