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Baseball to clash with No. 1 Titans

By Daily Bruin Staff

Feb. 13, 1996 9:00 p.m.

Baseball to clash with No. 1 Titans

By Yoni Tamler

Daily Bruin Contributor

If the UCLA baseball team expects to be the best, it must prove
that it can beat the best.

After toying with various WAC and Big West teams, the Bruins
(6-3 overall) will have their first true test of the season tonight
when they take on No. 1 Cal State Fullerton at 7 p.m. at Jackie
Robinson Stadium.

Fullerton (5-1) is the defending NCAA champion and has captured
the crown three times in its relatively short history as a
collegiate program.

This year the Titans return 1995 Golden Spikes Awardee Mark
Kotsay, a left-fielder and sometime-pitcher who batted .422 with 21
home runs and 90 RBIs last season. Behind the plate for Fullerton
is arguably the nation’s second-best catcher (next to Stanford’s
A.J. Hinch), Brian Loyd (.360, 10, 73).

"The guys know all about Fullerton, and so I don’t think there’s
a whole lot a coach has to say to get his team up for a game like
this," UCLA head coach Gary Adams said. "We’re all really tired
from the Hawaii trip, but (Wednesday) we’ll be fresher, have
adrenaline going for us, and we’ll have every reason to win. I
think our team is good enough to beat Cal State Fullerton,
period."

The Bruins are coming off a productive road trip in which they
won four games out of five against two Hawaii schools. UCLA
averaged 10.8 runs over the five games, allowing six runs per game
on defense.

UCLA will start right-hander Matt Klein, a sophomore transfer
from UC Santa Barbara. In his last start, a 15-9 Bruin victory over
Hawaii-Hilo, Klein gave up four runs in the first inning of play.
The Fullerton starting pitcher was yet to be determined at press
time.

"(Klein) deserved a better fate at Hilo," Adams said. "He
settled down and did alright, but it was a combination of them
getting some timely hits after a couple of our errors, and that’s
how they scored the four runs."

Adams added that the decision to start Klein in such a daunting
contest was based on the continuity of the rotation.

"He’s starting because not only does he have a good chance of
beating them, but because it works out best for him to pitch this
game in the overall scheme of things," he said.

In the two teams’ only meeting of the 1995 season, Fullerton
defeated UCLA at Jackie Robinson Stadium by a score of 6-2. The
Titans are 27-17-2 (.609) lifetime against UCLA since their
inception into NCAA Division I baseball in 1975.

FRED HE/Daily Bruin

The Titans meet Pete Zamora and the UCLA baseball team
tonight.

" … I think our team is good enough to beat Cal State
Fullerton, period."

Gary Adams

UCLA Head Coach

Comments to [email protected]

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