Sarver pitched five-hit ball over six-plus innings and Jason Windsor finished to lead the Titans to the College World Series championship round with a 4-0 victory last night over South Carolina.

The Titans (45-22) will face top-seeded Texas (58-13) in the best-of-three finals beginning tomorrow.

Sarver, pitching for his third college in three years, was making only his second start of the season. Sarver (3-2) struck out seven and walked two before Windsor came on to close out the Gamecocks and send Fullerton to the finals for the first time since the 1995 team won the championship.

"What a wonderful experience for me and for our team," Sarver said. "My goal was to give our team a chance to win and try and go deep into the game so we didn't have to burn Windsor too much for the Texas series. I know he's a horse, and I'm sure he'll be ready to go."

The Gamecocks already knew what Windsor could do. He shut them out 2-0 on a three-hitter in the first round of the CWS.

South Carolina coach Ray Tanner said he thought he had a good scouting report on Sarver, but the junior left-hander stymied an offense that had generated 35 runs in the Gamecocks' past three games.

Windsor, who earned his first career save, limited the Gamecocks to three hits and struck out the side in the ninth.

In 12 CWS innings, all against South Carolina, Windsor held the Gamecocks to six hits and struck out 19.

KURT SUZUKI

Fullerton became the first team since Pepperdine in 1992 to record two shutouts in the same Series and the first team since California in 1957 to shut out the same opponent twice.

"Not in our wildest dreams did we think we'd have a shutout against a great South Carolina ballclub, a team that has been swinging the bats extremely well," said Fullerton coach George Horton.

The Titans led 3-0 in the fourth against Matt Campbell (10-6) on Felipe Garcia's double and singles by Bobby Andrews and Neil Walton.