June 12, 1999
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) - The wind was blowing out to right field and JoshHochgesang, Edmund Muth and Joe Borchard had no trouble finding the flow.
Each homered to right and right-hander Jason Young went the distance for his10th complete game as Stanford beat Cal State-Fullerton 9-2 Saturday night inthe College World Series.
"That's how it's been all year long," Muth said. "When we need to hit, wehit. When we need to pitch, we pitch."
Sixth-seeded Stanford (49-13) will play Monday against second-seeded FloridaState, which beat Texas A&M 7-3 in Saturday's early game. Third-seededFullerton (49-13) goes against No. 7 Texas A&M on Monday in an eliminationgame.
Hochgesang, who grew up near the Fullerton campus, gave the Cardinal a 3-0lead in the top of the third when he hit a breaking pitch into the stands,pumping his fist when he rounded first and saw the ball drop.
"It will be nice for my family back home," Hochgesang said. "I justwanted to go up and put some solid contact on the ball. Any home run at theCollege World Series is nice."
Muth hit the first pitch of the fourth into the right field stands to makeit 4-0. Borchard went deep in the fifth for the third homer off Adam Johnson(10-4), this time with a shot that cleared the bleachers.
"There really isn't too much to that home run," Borchard said. "I assumehe made a mistake because he hung a curveball. I was able to take advantage ofthat mistake and it went out the park."
Young (12-3), meanwhile, held the Titans to one hit through four innings,throwing well until Shawn Norris got a leadoff triple in the fifth and CraigPatterson followed with a homer to left to pull Fullerton within 5-2.
"There was nothing I could do about that," Young said. "From there, Istarted to pitch a little more. I started to settle in. I just realized mymistakes on those two pitches and bounced back."
Young struck out the next three as he retired nine in a row. He improved asthe game progressed.
"I started to find my changeup around the fifth inning," Young said."That really became an out pitch for me. I got a lot of groundouts. I can'tsay enough about our defense in the last two weeks."
After Young struck out Ryan Owens for the first out of the ninth, Norrisreached on an error and Ryan Moore hit a pinch-hit double to right-center.Young struck out Robert Guzman and got David Bacani to ground out to second forthe first complete game in the CWS in two years.
"Young was tough," Titans coach George Horton said. "He was in the strikezone when we weren't swinging and he wasn't in the strike zone when we were.That's called good pitching."
Young struck out eight, walked two and hit three batters while allowing sixhits.
Johnson started for Fullerton, throwing into the sixth and allowing sevenruns and 10 hits. He turned it over to Marco Hanlon with runners on first andsecond, and that's when Stanford put it out of reach.
Hanlon missed first baseman Chris Beck on his first pickoff try, helping theCardinal score two more runs.
"Marco wasn't going to throw that," Horton said. "He was trying to holdon to it."
Twice more in the seventh, Hanlon overthrew his pickoff targets. In 1 1-3innings, Hanlon committed three of Fullerton's five errors.
By TIM KORTE
AP Sports Writer