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 CSUF 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 finals 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 CSUF 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 CSUF 2022-23 Annual Report, there is a story about the Titans’ baseball team…
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