June 5, 2009
FULLERTON, CA - Cal State Fullerton sophomore Daniel Renken scattered only three hits in notching his first career shutout while Khris Davis and Jared Clark each finished with four hits to highlight a 16-hit attack as the Titans opened the NCAA Super Regional round with a resounding 12-0 shutout of Louisville on Friday night at Goodwin Field in front of a season-high 3,362 fans.
Renken (11-2) needed only 98 pitches to dispatch of the Cardinals and notch his third complete game of the season, striking out six of eight at one point and finishing with 10 on the night to match his career high.
The right-hander retired 10 in a row from the fourth to the seventh and 17 of 18 at one point - including a three-pitch third inning.
Dean Kiekhefer (6-5) suffered the loss for Louisville (47-17), surrendering six runs on nine hits in 4 1/3 innings of work - one of four Cardinals pitchers on the night.
Friday marked the second time this season that Davis finished with four hits, joining his four-hit, three-home run performance against Stanford on March 1. Senior Jared Clark also had a big night, finishing 4-for-5 with a team-high four RBI.
Fullerton, which averaged better than 13 runs per game and reached double digits in two of its three regional contests a week ago, scored in five of the eight innings, including multiple runs in four of those frames. The top five hitters in the Titans' lineup combined to finish 12-for-19 (.632) with nine RBI and nine runs scored.
Clark and Davis combined to put the Titans (46-14) on the board quickly in the first as the former laced a two-run double down the left field line and the latter added an RBI single for the 3-0 lead.
A sacrifice fly by Christian Colon in the fourth extended the lead before the floodgates opened in the fifth. Josh Fellhauer led-off with his sixth home run of the year and was followed later in the inning by RBI doubles from Davis and Joe Scott to make it 7-0.
An RBI triple by Gary Brown and a run-scoring single from Clark made it a 9-0 contest before the Titans put up three more in the seventh as two hit batters and a walk loaded the bases for Clark, whose infield single was thrown away, allowing all three runners to come home for the final 12-0 tally.
Andrew Clark, Phil Wunderlich, and Ryan Wright had the only hits for the Cardinals with Wunderlich's hit going for a double.
The two teams meet in a potential championship game on Saturday afternoon (June 6) at 2 p.m. Louisville will be the designated home team.
ED NOTE: Bruises for everybody: The Titans were hit by a pitch six times on the night and are currently tied for 5th in NCAA single-season history with 122 on the year - just one behind Campbell for the national lead and eight shy of the NCAA record held by Notre Dame, which was hit 130 times in 2005.