2010 NCAA Super Regionals: UCLA vs Cal State Fullerton

Perhaps college baseball playoff games don't have the right to be called classics... not with aluminum bats, not with the paucity of pitching, not with the overworked arms that are spent at this time of the season.

Then again, Saturday night's second game of the Los Angeles Super Regional just might have been good enough to deserve elite status in the annals of college baseball history.

In a wild, rollicking affair that gave Southern Californians a level of entertainment value they don't often find on a baseball diamond, the UCLA Bruins barely kept their season alive with a heartstopping extra-inning win over the Cal State Fullerton Titans. The win enables the Bruins to contest a Game 3 in this bitter encounter between two backyard rivals. The show starts Sunday night at 10 p.m. Eastern on ESPN2.

Why is UCLA still alive? The Pac-10's best team in 2010 just kept coming at Fullerton's fireballers, touching up each and every CSF pitcher for at least one run... but especially in key situations.

The outlook wasn't brilliant for the "Bruin Nine" at Jackie Robinson Stadium when the eighth inning began. Fullerton - down 4-2 entering the seventh - rang up a 4-spot thanks to a tie-breaking two-run single by Corey Jones. The bold charge left the Bruins shaken, but they had little choice but to regroup and make their last six outs count.

Oh, did they ever.

In the eighth, UCLA's Cody Regis powered a solo homer to bring the Bruins within one run at 6-5. In the ninth, however, UCLA's first two hitters made outs against CSF's Raymond Hernandez, putting the Titans of the Big West Conference one out from Omaha and the College World Series. Fullerton has historically advanced to the big show in Nebraska, while UCLA has stood in the shadows of the Titans and also crosstown rival USC. As the ninth inning wore on, it looked as though UCLA's magical season was going to fall short of its intended goal. Even when Blair Dunlap earned a walk against Hernandez, the smart money still stood with Fullerton.

Tyler Rahmatulla had other plans.

The UCLA second baseman drove a Hernandez offering out of the yard for an electrifying two-run homer and a 7-6 UCLA lead. Two-out go-ahead homers always acquire more magnitude in the top of the ninth, but in an elimination postseason game, they become enshrined in the public memory. Yes, Fullerton tied the score thanks to a UCLA error in the bottom half of the ninth, but when UCLA roared back with four in the tenth off losing CSF reliever Kevin Rath (2-3), Rahmatullah's muscular moment only grew in size and stature. When Bruin pinch-hitter Trevor Brown lashed a two-run single to give UCLA a 9-7 lead in the top of the tenth, you can bet that the smile on Mr. Rahmatullah's face could have lit up Los Angeles for a month if not more.

Dan Klein (6-0) got the win for UCLA after pitching the final 2 1/3 innings, including a scoreless tenth.

Up 4-2. Down 6-4. Up 7-6. Tied 7-7. Victors, 11-7. UCLA's ride was fraught with peril, but the battling Bruins are still standing. With one more win, they won't just evade the clutches of elimination. They'll journey to Nebraska with a joy beyond all telling.

UCLA vs Cal State Fullerton - NCAA Baseball Super Regional (Best-of-Three)