2:01pm | The highly-hyped matchup between Long Beach State’s Andrew Gagnon and Cal State Fullerton’s Noe Ramirez lived up to its billing, but the Dirtbags came out on the losing end of a 4-2 contest on Friday in the first of three games between the two teams.
Gagnon threw for seven innings on Friday, striking out four and allowing just three earned runs. But he was matched by Ramirez, who finished with eight innings pitched with seven strikeouts and just two hits allowed, retiring the last nine batters he faced.
Long Beach State (24-23, 8-8) struck first right off the bat. Matt Hibbert led off the game by drawing a walk, and after moving over on a groundout and a wild pitch, he came home to score on an RBI single by Ino Patron.
Cal State Fullerton (34-14, 15-4) answered back in the bottom of the first as a leadoff double by Ivory Thomas led to a run on a sacrifice fly from Tyler Pill, evening the score at 1-1 after the first.
Both pitchers settled down after the first inning, but the Titans took their first lead in the fourth inning. Nick Ramirez hit a solo home run — his eighth of the year — to put Fullerton on top, and Michael Lorenzen scored on a passed ball after a two-out triple as the Titans took a 3-1 lead.
The Titans added an insurance run in the eighth inning. After a single to start the inning, a high popup to shallow left field dropped in for a double, and after an intentional walk to Nick Ramirez, a run was scored on an error from Kirk Singer. Matt Johnson was able to bear down and get two strikeouts, and a fly ball to Jeff McNeil ended the inning.
Two errors by Keegan Dale helped the Dirtbags put together a rally in the ninth inning. Hibbert reached to start the inning. After a second error put runners on the corners, Matt Duffy singled through the left side to cut the lead to two runs.
Nick Ramirez moved from first to close out the game at the start of the inning. He converted his 13th save of the year in the ninth in front of a season-high 2,496 spectators at Goodwin Field with plenty of Dirtbag fans in attendance.
Dirtbags Fall against No. 9 Cal State Fullerton 4-2
