CSUN to Meet Fresno in NCAA Baseball Action

Northridge became the last word in college baseball on Monday, much to the relief of a group of Cal State Northridge players and school officials who huddled together to watch the 48-team NCAA baseball regional field announced on national cable television.

The Matadors, 41-16-1 in their first season of Division I competition, will meet Fresno State (37-20) at 7:30 p.m. Thursday in the first round of regional action at Fresno State’s Beiden Field.

The regional at Fresno was the last of the eight, six-team fields to be announced, and Northridge was the final team introduced.

Even the “Cal State . . . “ didn’t seal Northridge’s fate, since Cal State Fullerton, co-champion of the Big West Conference, also was thought to be under consideration.

“When there was one team left and Fullerton wasn’t there, I thought it was all over,” Northridge Coach Bill Kernen said.

Miami (45-15), the top seed in the regional at Fresno, meets sixth-seeded Portland (30-17) at noon on Thursday, with Stanford (37-21), the second seed, meeting fifth-seeded San Diego State (43-19) at 3:30 p.m.

Fresno, co-champion of the Big West, will have the advantage of a large home crowd in Thursday night’s opener. The Bulldogs also will have Bobby Jones, one of the nation’s top pitchers, on the mound.

Jones, a 6-foot-4, 210-pound right-hander, is 13-1 with a 1.59 earned-run average. His only loss was against Northridge, when the Matadors topped the Bulldogs, 4-1, in the semifinals of the Fresno Tournament in March. Northridge won four of its six games in the tournament and finished second to Creighton.

“It’s good in terms of we’re playing in a familiar place,” Kernen said of the Matadors’ draw. “We were there for a week under tournament conditions and had some success. It’s better than going to Austin, Texas, from that standpoint.

“The other side of it is that it’s such a stacked regional that you’d better be OK with the environment and that kind of stuff, because if you’re not, you’re not going to have a chance to figure it out. That’s a College World Series field right there.”

Craig Clayton, who defeated Jones and Fresno with a complete-game five-hitter, will be Northridge’s starting pitcher in the opener. The 6-foot-1 junior right-hander is 13-4 with a 2.05 ERA.

Clayton, who also is the Matadors’ top hitter with a .372 average, said he was happy to be returning to Fresno. “It’s a big lift, besides just the fact that we beat Jones,” Clayton said. “We’ve been there before and are a little more confident because we’ve played in front of the crowd there.”

About a rematch with Jones, Clayton said, “We know we can beat him, and he knows we’re the only one who has done it. That’s a psychological factor.”

Jones and Clayton each have 14 complete games and average roughly a strikeout per inning.

“Jones threw a good ballgame against us last time. Craig just threw a better one,” said Scott Sharts, Northridge’s leader with 22 home runs and 63 runs batted in. “(Jones) is a great pitcher, 13-1, but he has that one in the loss column, and he knows who it was against.”

Kernen, who as an assistant at Fullerton and Illinois took teams to five regionals, expected Northridge to be sent to Fresno and said he had three comments regarding the playoff teams selected.

First, Kernen lauded the selection committee on its 10 selections from the West Coast. Next, he commended how the NCAA regionalized the playoffs and sent few teams cross-country.

“And third,” Kernen said, “God help us.”