In 2023, we watched the Cal State Fullerton baseball team not only return to a familiar perch but send one of their teams up to a deserved seat atop the university’s athletic Mt. Olympus. We watched the CSF men’s track and field team build the next brick in a budding dynasty and the men’s water polo team lay the first brick of history.
We watched the softball team play its most brutal schedule in program history, then validate the challenge with its 31st postseason berth. We watched the men’s basketball team outkick its preseason prognostication once again, reaching the Big West Tournament final and winning 20 games for the second consecutive season.
We watched the men’s golf team introduce more talented players, illustrating an underrated depth as it showed any of them can rise up at any time and win a share of conference championships.
We said hello to freshman standouts like golfer Davina Xanh, men’s water polo player Francisco Paredes and basketball player Hope Hassman, and transfer newcomers like tennis player Zoe Olmos. We said hello to soccer forward Roberto Ordonez, who announced his incandescent presence by kicking in the door to the Titans’ regular-season men’s soccer title.
And we said goodbye to Fram and Julie Virjee, who made attending CSF athletic events a presidential mandate, baseball pitcher Fynn Chester and softball pitcher Myka Sutherlin, the Big West Scholar-Athletes of the Year, and four Titan baseball players who were drafted by major league teams: Nate Nankil (Oakland Athletics, seventh round), reliever Jojo Ingrassia (Boston Red Sox, 14th round), catcher Cole Urman (Baltimore Orioles, 16th round) and outfielder/first baseman Caden Connor (Chicago White Sox, 19th round). The four draftees were more than any other Big West program.
Here, in no particular order, we look at some of 2023’s marquee athletic events.
Validation
On Page 9 of the 2022-23 CSF Annual Report, there is a story about the Titans’ baseball team featuring the headline, “Back Where It Belongs.”
Every alum with a passing interest in the Titans’ athletic program likely said those exact words at the end of the 2023 baseball season. For the first time since 2018, the Ferrari of the athletic department, the most recognizable program across the country, returned to the postseason. Its 1-2 record in the Stanford Regional did not detract from the fact Fullerton went 20-10 in the Big West and won nine consecutive series, taking the conference’s automatic NCAA berth despite finishing one game behind UC San Diego. The Tritons were ineligible for postseason play, due to their transitional status to Division 1.
In head coach Jason Dietrich’s second year, the Titans improved by 10 games overall (going 32-24) and six games in the Big West. The improvement came despite the Titans not finishing in the top three in any significant offensive category and in the top three in only strikeouts among the top pitching categories.
Two other former Titans made news on a bigger stage. In August, Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Michael Lorenzen became the first Titan to throw a no-hitter in the major leagues when he scuttled the Washington Nationals, 7-0. It was the 14th no-hitter in club history, and it came in Lorenzen’s Phillies debut, after he was sent from Detroit to Philadelphia. That made him the fifth pitcher in major league history and only the second since 1900 to throw a no-hitter in his home debut with a new team.
While Lorenzen reconfirmed his major-league bona fides, Tanner Bibee announced his. The former Titan pitcher made his major league debut with the Cleveland Guardians on April 26 and immediately found a home. He went 10-4 in 25 starts, posting a 2.98 ERA and 141 strikeouts and 45 walks in 142 innings. Bibee was one of only eight major league pitchers to record a sub-3.00 ERA pitching more than 100 innings, becoming a finalist for American League Rookie of the Year and earning a spot on the MLB All-Rookie Team.
Back in the pool
In 2022, the CSF women’s water polo team were debutantes. In the fall of 2023, the men joined them in the pool, where they returned to action for the first time since 1985. And by all accounts, it was a wildly successful return.
The Titans finished 16-16, a record that included two victories over Air Force and respectable showings against some of the best programs in the country. Playing in the Big West means you cope with a conga line of ranked teams. The Titans went 0-5 in conference play, which sounds a lot worse than it was, considering every one of those losses was to a ranked team: No. 6 UC Irvine, No. 7 UC Davis, No. 8 Long Beach State, No. 11 UC Santa Barbara and No. 12 UC San Diego.
Togan Ozbek earned All-Big West Honorable Mention accolades for his team-high 58 goals, placing him sixth in the Big West. He led the team in assists (41), the No. 3 mark in the Big West, and fell one point short of being the first CSUF player to post 100 points in a season. Paredes captured a spot on the All-Big West Freshman Team with 27 goals and a stellar .551 shooting percentage.
A class of firsts
There was a thread running through the inductees into the CSF Athletic Hall of Fame Class of 2023.
Be first.
There was the 1979 baseball team, the first Cal State Fullerton team to win the College World Series. There was Martha Wilkinson-Kirouac, who won CSF’s first women’s national championship when she captured the 1967 Division of Girls’ and Women’s Sports Golf Championship in Seattle. She was the first woman golfer inductee.
Wrestler T.J. Dillashaw and women’s soccer goalie Karen Bardsley joined Wilkinson-Kirouac as the first inductees in their respective sports. There was soccer forward Eddie Soto, who led the Titans to their first national semifinal in 1993. And there was Julie Max, a pioneer in athletic training.
The Class of 2023 was honored at a November reception in Brea.
Next man up is …?
CSF men’s golf coach Jason Drotter talked about the length and overall talent of Garrett Boe and the consistency of Harry Doig, both elements of which made them All-Big West First Team choices.
So who was the conference’s tri-champion at the Big West Tournament? Russell Howlett.
Howlett shot 73-70-68–211. His 5-under-par total at La Quinta Country Club tied Long Beach State’s Ian Gilligan and Cal Poly’s Baron Szeto for the individual title. It also paced the Titans to a second-place team finish, two shots behind Long Beach State.
How loud a debut did Ordonez make for the Titans’ men’s soccer team? He became the first Titan in program history to be named Big West Offensive Player of the Year. His nine goals were second in the conference, his 28 points and 10 assists led the conference, and those 10 assists were tied for eighth in the nation.
He and fellow All-Big West First Team selection Erick Serrano led a hardware parade that produced four Player of the Year honors, Coach of the Year honors for George Kuntz and eight all-conference selections – the most in program history. The Titans won five of six yearly honors – every one but Freshman of the Year – and the five First Team selections were a program record.
Serrano’s eight assists ranked second in the Big West – behind Ordonez. He was named the Big West Midfielder of the Year and joined Ordonez on the All-Far West Regional Team.
Center back Giovanni Calderon became the first Titan to win the Big West Defensive Player of the Year Award. Tetsuya Kadona became the first Titan to win Big West Goalkeeper of the Year, earning the award for his five clean sheets. Rounding out the first-team choices was Sulaiman Bah, who finished second on the team and fourth in the conference with his 18 points. Bah’s eight goals tied for third in the Big West.
The CSF women’s team had four players named to the All-Big West First Team, led by Women’s Soccer Goalkeeper of the Year Mia Ranson and Big West Freshman of the Year Kaylee Noble. Ranson led the Big West in save percentage (.838), tied for the conference lead in shutouts (seven) and second in goals-against-average (.952). Noble debuted with three goals and eight points, leading the team in shots on goal (17).
Sophomore midfielder Bella Cruz (three goals, 10 points) and sophomore defender Kaylin Raibon, who led the Titans in scoring with five goals and 11 points, rounded out the first-team selections. CSUF put four players on the first team for the first time since 2015.
