For Sorensens, the Victory Is Sweet but Not Complete

OMAHA — As her son, Matt, Cal State Fullerton’s starting pitcher, walked off the mound in the bottom of the ninth inning in an elimination game at the College World Series at Rosenblatt Stadium, having given his team a 4-2 lead over Texas A&M;, as the crowd of 22,824 stood and cheered and as Matt blushed, put his head down and pounded his fist into his glove, Marianne Sorensen wept.

The tears ran down her face, smearing the blue-painted Nos. 22, Matt’s number, which were on each cheek and the tears didn’t stop even when Titan relief pitcher Kirk Saarloos recorded the last two, terribly tense outs that preserved the victory for Sorensen and kept Fullerton’s bid for a fourth College World Series title alive. The tears flowed on as Marianne hugged her daughter, Kristina, and yelled Matt’s name.

The tears were joyful, they were angry, they were sad. So many emotions and memories came together in Marianne’s head as Matt walked off the mound and into the arms of his teammates. Marianne was remembering how she rolled a little yellow Nerf ball to her 18-month-old son on the front porch and how he threw it back to her. She was remembering all the days and nights when she and her husband, Rick, would be taking Matt to football games or baseball games and how her competitive son would fight his own tears over every loss.

Marianne wanted fiercely for Matt to have been able to get two more outs and earn the complete game victory, for that is what a mother thinks. “Matt could have done it,” she said. “I’m mad they took him out.” So those were the angry tears. And then Marianne looked up at the sky and said softly, “I wish so much Matt’s dad could be here. This would mean so much to him. I’m sure he’s watching now. I just know he’s watching. He has to be.”

Rick Sorensen died of lung cancer five years ago and those were the sad tears. The joyful tears, of course, were for her son, the lanky towhead whose dream had been to play quarterback for USC. That’s why Matt went to Cerritos College after he graduated from Warren High School in Downey. He wanted to prove to USC that he had the arm to be a Trojan quarterback.

But there was an ankle injury and maybe Sorensen’s arm just wasn’t quite as strong as USC wanted. Sorensen said he never did hear from the USC football staff. Instead he was offered football scholarships from schools such as Hawaii and San Jose State and Bowling Green and, no offense intended, but Sorensen wanted something better than that. So he looked over baseball scholarship offers from USC, Long Beach State and Fullerton and chose Fullerton.

“I can’t explain why, exactly,” Sorensen said on a lovely Monday night when he has become, for 24 hours anyway, a hero, “since all my life I’d wanted to go to USC. Something just felt right.”

No matter what happens in the rest of this CWS, there can be no gutsier performance than Sorensen’s on Monday night.

The 6-foot-2 right-hander threw 64 pitches in the first three innings. He gave up a run in the first, and a man was left on second. He gave up another run in the second, had a man left on second and benefited from an exquisite pickoff play by catcher Craig Patterson that got rid of a runner on third.

In his last start, in Game 1 of the NCAA super regionals in Columbus against Ohio State, Sorensen walked six, gave up six runs in 6 1/3 innings and was lucky not to get the loss in a 10-7 defeat.

There is something that Sorensen doesn’t lack, though, and that is confidence. “I believe in myself,” Sorensen said. “I always have and that game was behind me real quick.”

From the third through the eighth innings Monday, Sorensen only threw 48 more pitches. Runners reached second twice, once with the help of a passed ball and once because of his wild pitch. In the eighth, while Saarloos was warming up, Sorensen retired the side on four pitches. And, for the third time this year, Sorensen didn’t walk a batter. Pretty good deal after that Ohio State debacle.

And so when her son retired Texas A&M;’s first hitter in the ninth on a pop foul to first baseman Chris Beck, Marianne Sorensen wanted nothing more in the world than for her son to get two more outs. Coaches can’t be quite so sentimental, though, so when Sean Heaney singled and Greg Porter followed with a crackling double, putting runners on second and third with one out, there was no doubt. It was out with Sorensen, in with Saarloos.

“There’s no one I want to give the ball up to except Kirk,” Sorensen said afterward. “Matt was dominating from the third inning on,” Saarloos said. “It was such a big thing for Matt to give us this performance. When you’re in the losers’ bracket, getting good pitching is so important. He did his job, got us to the ninth.”

It was not an easy decision, Sorensen said, to give up his football dreams. He and his girlfriend, Sarah Allmon, who is from Lake Arrowhead and who is a volleyball player at Washington, sat down and made a checklist. Pros and cons. Football or baseball. “When I looked at the list,” Sorensen said, “it seemed pretty clear. A chance to compete at the highest level. A chance to be in the College World Series.”

Every day, he said, Sorensen thinks of his dad. “This is a little bittersweet without him,” he said. He’s sad, too, that Sarah can’t be here, but his mother, his sister and one brother, Erick, made it. His other brother, Tony, is back home attending traffic school, consequences of a speeding ticket. At this, Marianne smiles. “He’ll be pretty mad,” she said.

Sorensen, a sophomore, is 12-0. He saved his Titans from elimination and will be happy to pitch again on Saturday if the Titans survive that long. That would be for the national championship. Marianne’s tears? They might never stop. But there will be a smile too. For Matt. And for someone who can’t be here. For dad. The day before Father’s Day.

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Diane Pucin can be reached at her e-mail address: [email protected]