One year later, the result was still the same.
A preseason No. 1 ranking, an additional year of postseason experience and a UCLA team that was just beginning to peak couldn’t change the all-too familiar end for the Bruin baseball team: a season-ending loss to Cal State Fullerton at the Titans’ Goodwin Field.
Like last season, the final game was close ““ this one a 5-4 loss with the tying run stranded 90 feet away ““ making the prospect of failing to make it to Omaha that much tougher to swallow.
“We battled our asses off (Monday),” junior pitcher/center-fielder Tim Murphy said. “Gave it all we had, but it’s baseball. Sometimes you come up on the short end of the stick, and that’s what happened tonight. It was a well-fought game, couldn’t have been any better.”
Following the game, members of the team quietly contemplated that final loss. Some stared hopelessly at the trees hovering behind the right-field wall. Some met with teammates, thanking each other for a season that ended with the team playing at its best. And some tried to fight back tears; many failed.
Overall, despite the undesirable outcome, both players and coaches expressed how proud they were.
“You know, I’m pretty proud of our team,” junior third baseman Jermaine Curtis said. “We battled the whole year. We wanted to go to the Super Regionals and hopefully go to Omaha, but that’s life ““ it just happens like that.”
This season has been one filled with ups and downs, long stretches of good play followed by equally long stretches of inconsistent play. The season began with the first preseason No. 1 ranking in the history of the entire program, yet throughout the majority of the season, the Bruins did not play like one of the nation’s top teams.
On April 7, the Bruins fell out of the top-25, failing to ever climb back into the rankings for the rest of the season. At one point, the Bruins sat in sixth place in the Pac-10 standings with a mediocre 25-23 overall record, making an NCAA Regional berth seem like a stretch.
But in the closing weeks of the regular season, the Bruins went on a run, winning five of their final six conference games on the way to a No. 2 seed in the Fullerton regional of the NCAA Tournament, making the postseason for the third consecutive year.
“I’m proud, man,” Curtis said. “Like I said, before they were counting us out. No one thought we were going to make playoffs. The critics were saying that we couldn’t do it. We just proved everyone wrong. Came to the final game and gave it our all, and it didn’t go our way.”
On Monday, the end of the season came the same way it did last season: a close loss to a Cal State Fullerton squad. The Bruins were 90 feet away from tying the game, yet a line drive off the bat of Curtis found the glove of center fielder Josh Fellhauer to end the game ““ and the season ““ for the Bruins.
“(Monday’s) game was a hard-fought game between two of the best teams in the country that happened to be in the same regional,” coach John Savage said. “They came up one run ahead of us.”
For the Bruins, Monday night’s game featured shades of last year’s 2-1 loss in the Super Regionals to the Titans. That game featured a tremendous performance by then-freshman pitcher Gavin Brooks and a Bruin offense that failed to take advantage of the opportunities given to them.
Yet following Monday’s game, the players were adamant that last year’s loss was not in the team’s mind.
“Tell you the truth, all that stuff last year doesn’t even matter to me,” Curtis said. “It just mattered about this game. None of that bothered us. We just said, “˜You know what, today is a game, and we need to go from there.’ We just took it like another game. That’s what you got to do.”
The Bruins must now look ahead. For the juniors ““ Curtis, Murphy, shortstop Brandon Crawford and catcher Ryan Babineau ““ the MLB Draft is this weekend, which will determine their futures. On Monday, however, those thoughts were far from their minds.
“I haven’t even thought about that,” Curtis said. “I was just trying to win a ball game. I’m not even thinking about that now. I’m just trying to savor this moment with my teammates.”
For Savage and the Bruins, a promising 2009 season looms. The incoming freshman recruiting class was tabbed No. 7 by Baseball America. First baseman Casey Haerther had a breakout season and is just a sophomore.
For Savage, the things the team needs to do to get over the hump is simple.
“Work, gotta keep working,” Savage said. “Gotta do what every good program does. Gotta recruit. Gotta get good players. They have to do well in the classroom. They have to compete well in the Pac-10. We feel good about our players and our program. It’s in good position to stay in the postseason for a long time.”
On Monday night, outside of the visitors’ dugout of Goodwin Field, Savage stood in the spot where his team’s season has ended in disappointment the past two seasons, commenting on the season.
“I think it’s a success,” Savage said. “People who think that it is a failure haven’t played or haven’t coached. You have to give the players a lot of credit for really finishing the season strong.”