Feb. 19, 2000
Box Score
FULLERTON, Calif. - Brett Kay homered and doubled and Steve Woodward had three hits and stole home Saturday afternoon to lead Cal State Fullerton to a 7-3 non-conference baseball victory over UNLV.
The win raised the Titans' record to 4-5 and saddled UNLV (3-9) with its sixth consecutive loss this season and sixth in a row to Fullerton dating to 1998.
Matt Sorensen went seven-plus innings in his first start of the year to get his first victory. Mike Nunez relieved with two on and none out in the eighth and held the Rebels scoreless to post his first save. Luke Anderson went 5.2 innings for UNLV and allowed all 7 runs and 9 hits in falling to 1-3.
Kay led off the second inning with his first collegiate home run to give Fullerton a 2-0 lead. He led off the sixth with a double and scored on Chris Stringfellow's two-out double to center for the final run of the game.
Woodward's infield single set up Fullerton's initial run in the first and his pop-fly double in the third scored David Bacani to make the score 3-1. He went to third on Murph Norris' fly ball to center and then with two out and left-handed hitting Aaron Rifkin at the plate, he stole home, easily beating catcher Brad Beasley's tag attempt after catching Anderson's hurried and high pitch.
Shortstop Mike Martinez' triple was the key hit in a 2-run fourth, bringing in Craig Patterson andsetting up Chris Stringfellow's succesful suicide squeeze bunt.
UNLV used a single, two sacrifice bunts and a sacrifice fly by Garett Shitanishi to get on the board in the third. Sorensen's errant throw on a pickoff try in the fifth led to the second Rebel run and Shitanishi singled home Beasley to cut the deficit to 6-3.
"I'm sure (pitching coach) Dave Serrano would agree that this wasn't Sorensen's finest outing, but he's a battler and just finds a way to win," said Head Coach George Horton of his starting pitcher, who was 12-0 last year.
"We're continuing to work with the hitters to get out of our slump and I think the offense is going to come around."
The teams play the final game of the series, weather permitting, at 1 p.m. on Sunday. Jon Smith (1-1) starts for the Titans. Fullerton is then idle until a Feb. 29 game at Pepperdine.
