Inspired by the D1Baseball article, Best Of The 2010s: End Of Decade Staff Favorites, we decided to compile our own list.
The D1Baseball article had each of their staff members select three favorites in a number of categories across all of college baseball.
Categories included: Three Favorite Players To Cover, Three Favorite Moments, Three Best Players, Three Best Teams and One Thing I Want To See The Next Decade.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and here at Cal State Omaha we borrowed a few of their categories and came up with a few on our own and applied them to only Cal State Fullerton Titan Baseball for the past 10 years.
Our favorites from 2010-2019 of Titan Baseball:
Three Favorite Moments:
1. June 10, 2017 – The Touchdown inning: Scoring seven runs in the 3rd inning of Game 2 of the 2017 Long Beach Super Regional
2. June 2, 2018 – The Jumbo Jack: Jace Chamberlin’s walk-off home run at Stanford
3. May 17, 2013 – The Marathon At-Bat: Carlos Lopez 14 pitch at-bat vs. UC Irvine’s Mitch Merten that included nine straight foul balls and resulted in an RBI single to Right Field
Three Favorite Games:
1. June 11, 2017 – Game 3 of the 2017 Long Beach Super Regional
Hank LoForte 2 RBI single in the 4th inning was all the scoring needed. Brett Conine strikes out David Banuelos with the tying run on third base to end the game and send the Titans to Omaha.
2. June 8, 2015 – Game 3 of the Louisville Super Regional
The famous “Foul Pole Game” when David Olmedo-Barrera hit the towering home run off the foul pole that was ruled a fair ball in the 11th inning. In the bottom of the 11th, Louisville’s Ryan Summers was caught stealing for the third out and the Titans advance to the College World Series.
T3. March 29, 2018 – Colton Eastman’s No-Hitter
Eastman walked one and struck out seven en route to the 5th no-hitter in Titan Baseball history and the first no-no on the road.
T3. May 23, 2014 – Justin Garza’s No-Hitter
Garza walked three and struck out 12 at Goodwin Field en route to the 4th no-no in Titan Baseball history.
Three Best Pitchers:
1. Thomas Eshelman
2. Justin Garza
3. Noe Ramirez
Three Best Batters:
1. Michael Lorenzen
2. Matt Chapman
3. Carlos Lopez
Three Favorite Players:
1. Thomas Eshelman
2. Sahid Valenzuela
3. Carlos Lopez
Three Most Talented Teams:
1. 2013 Titans – 51-10 record – Lost to UCLA in Super Regionals
Notable players: Michael Lorenzen, Matt Chapman, JD Davis, Richy Pedroza, Carlos Lopez, Justin Garza, Thomas Eshelman, Tyler Peitzmeier
2. 2015 Titans – 39-25 record – Advanced to Omaha losing to Vanderbilt and LSU
Notable players: David Olmedo-Barrera, Tanner Pinkston, Dalton Blaser, Timmy Richards, Justin Garza, Thomas Eshelman, Tyler Peitzmeier
3. 2017 Titans – 39-24 record – Advanced to Omaha losing to Oregon State and Florida State
Notable players: Hank LoForte, Sahid Valenzuela, Dillon Persinger, Timmy Richards, Scott Hurst, Connor Seabold, John Gavin, Colton Eastman, Brett Conine, Blake Workman
One Thing I Want To See The Next Decade:
A 5th national championship
My favorite game has to be the 14 inning marathon against ASU in the 2013(?) regional. Someone once said, “Nothing good ever happens after midnight.” That night it sure did.