Titans to face Longhorns

Cal St. Fullerton topples S. Carolina

? Vagabond pitcher Scott Sarver looked right at home in Cal State Fullerton’s most important game of the season.

Sarver pitched five-hit ball over six-plus innings, and Jason Windsor finished to lead the Titans to the College World Series championship round with a 4-0 victory Thursday night over South Carolina.

The Titans (45-22) will face top-seeded Texas (58-13) in the best-of-three finals beginning Saturday.

Sarver (3-2), pitching for his third college in three years, was brilliant in only his second start of the season. He struck out seven and walked two before Windsor came on to close out the Gamecocks and send Fullerton to the finals for the first time since the 1995 team won the championship.

“What a wonderful experience for me and for our team,” Sarver said. “My goal was to give our team a chance to win and try and go deep into the game so we didn’t have to burn Windsor too much for the Texas series. I know he’s a horse, and I’m sure he’ll be ready to go.”

The Gamecocks already knew what Windsor could do. He shut them out 2-0 on a three-hitter in the first round of the CWS.

South Carolina coach Ray Tanner said he thought he had a good scouting report on Sarver, but the junior left-hander stymied an offense that had generated 35 runs in the Gamecocks’ last three games.

“Sarver, he didn’t have a whole lot of innings and he wasn’t a highly touted guy, but any time a pitcher is on, it can change a game, and he obviously had his stuff tonight,” South Carolina catcher Landon Powell said.

Windsor, who earned his first career save, limited the Gamecocks to three hits and struck out the side in the ninth.

In 12 CWS innings, all against South Carolina, Windsor held the Gamecocks to six hits and struck out 19.

The Gamecocks became the first team to be shut out twice in the same CWS since Fullerton in 1982.

“Not in our wildest dreams did we think we’d have a shutout against a great South Carolina ballclub, a team that has been swinging the bats extremely well,” Fullerton coach George Horton said. “He (Sarver) looked like an All-American pitcher.”