June 6, 2010

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FULLERTON, CA - Cal State Fullerton's Corey Jones finished with three hits, including his seventh home run of the season, and three RBI to lead a trio of Titans with three hits on the day, helping his team to an 11-3 victory over third-seeded New Mexico in an elimination game at the 2010 NCAA Baseball Regional at Goodwin Field.

Top-seeded Fullerton (43-16 overall, 2-1 in NCAA Regional play) advances to the regional championship against unbeaten and fourth-seeded Minnesota later tonight at 8 p.m. PDT. Should the Titans defeat the Golden Gophers, the two teams would meet in a winner-take-all game seven on Monday night (June 7) at 8 p.m. PDT.

The Lobos finished their season at 38-22 overall and 1-2 in postseason play, claiming their first NCAA victory since 1962 with a 9-5 win over second-seeded Stanford back on Friday.

Daniel Renken (12-2) earned the win on the mound for Fullerton, allowing just three runs on eight hits in seven-plus innings while striking out six and working around four walks. He threw 136 pitches on the afternoon before giving way to Raymond Hernandez, who struck out two of the first three batters he faced (finishing with three overall) and allowed just one hit in two innings of work in his first career collegiate appearance.

Mike LaChappelle (5-3), the first of three arms for UNM on the day, suffered the loss for the Lobos, surrendering six earned on six hits in just two innings of work as the Titans scored two runs or more in four of their five scoring innings on the day.

Jones' home run got the scoring started in the first with one out after Christian Colon singled to lead-off the game and was sacrificed to second. For Jones, the hit extended his hitting streak to 22 games - only the sixth Titan to have a hitting streak of at least 22 games in the history of the program (tied for fifth with Shane Costa, who had a 22-game streak in 2002).

The Titans added three more in the second on a two-run double by Colon, who finished 3-for-5 with three runs scored, and an infield hit by Jones for the 5-0 lead before New Mexico battled back for two runs in its half of the inning on back-to-back RBI hits by Daniel Gonzalez and Adam Courcha to pull back to within three runs.

That would be as close as the Lobos would get, however, as Fullerton tacked on two more runs in the third, including Nick Ramirez's 14th home run of the season to centerfield, and three more in the fifth on a pair of errors by the Lobos' defense. Walker Moore added the final run with an RBI infield hit in the sixth to cap the scoring.

Jacob Nelson, who finished 3-for-5, slugged his third home run of the season in the eighth to finish off the scoring for New Mexico.

Carlos Lopez also had three hits and a run scored on the day for the Titans, who racked up 17 hits and took advantage of four UNM errors on the day.