Young Titans take big stage

Before Cal State Fullerton traveled to Omaha this week, Coach Dave Serrano peppered freshman pitcher Noe Ramirez with a barrage of good-natured jibes.

“He’s been teasing me, trying to get the jitters out, saying, ‘Are you scared? Are you scared?’ ” Ramirez said, chuckling.

Serrano’s reverse psychology was an attempt to prepare Ramirez for today’s start against Arkansas in the opening game of the 63rd College World Series.

After two impressive NCAA tournament outings, the 19-year-old from East Los Angeles appears poised to handle the assignment.

But Fullerton, featuring a relatively unseasoned starting rotation, will be tested in an eight-team tournament that includes double-elimination bracket play and a best-of-three championship series.

The Titans (47-14) and Arkansas (39-22) are in a bracket with Louisiana State (51-16) and Virginia (48-13-1), who meet in today’s second game. The other bracket has Texas (46-14-1), Arizona State (49-12), North Carolina (47-16) and Southern Mississippi (40-24).

Fullerton has a pitching staff that is collectively younger than any of the four that helped past Titans teams win World Series titles.

Sophomore Daniel Renken, who probably will be the starter in Fullerton’s second game, qualifies as elder in a rotation with Ramirez and freshman Tyler Pill. Closer Nick Ramirez also is a freshman.

“We’re pretty much a veteran staff in our minds,” Renken said. “We’ve matured along the way.”

Renken, 11-3 with a 2.36 earned-run average, shut out Louisville in a super regional last week. Noe Ramirez (9-1, 2.86), Pill (11-3, 3.95) and Nick Ramirez (3-1, 2.63, seven saves) are freshman All-Americans.

“They don’t act like freshmen and they don’t pitch like it,” Serrano said.

However, none has toed the rubber at historic Rosenblatt Stadium. Nor have they pitched in front of crowds of more than 23,000 and a national television audience.

“You never know how they’re going to react to that environment,” said Oregon Coach George Horton, who preceded Serrano at Fullerton and guided the Titans to six World Series appearances and the 2004 title. “I don’t think it’s the youth that will be the challenge. It’s that they’ve never pitched there before.”

Horton and several former Fullerton pitchers who played for Titans championship teams said this year’s staff should fare well, especially with Serrano, who guided UC Irvine to the 2006 World Series, and senior catcher Dustin Garneau providing a calming influence.

Dave Weatherman, a complete-game winner against Arkansas in the 1979 title game, believes television actually could work in the young staff’s favor. He says Noe Ramirez and others should have an inkling of what it will be like because they watched the World Series throughout their formative years.

Pill also attended the 2004 and 2006 World Series to watch his brother, Brett, a former Titans infielder.

In comparison, when the 1979 team arrived in Omaha, the experience was “a huge unknown,” Weatherman said.

“They’ve already lived it in a sense. This is more second nature than it was for us.”

The inexperience of this year’s staff is in sharp contrast to the Titans’ 1984 championship team, which included seven pitchers selected in that year’s major league draft.

One of them, Steve Rousey, is the head coach at Cal State Northridge, which lost two of three to the Titans this season.

“You can’t put a price tag on experience, but, that being said, you can’t put a price tag on talent either and these guys have it,” Rousey said. “They’ve pitched in some big games. . . . They just have to remember that in most cases the guy in the [batter’s] box hasn’t hit in games this big either.”

Ted Silva, an 18-game winner for Fullerton’s 1995 championship team, is confident the young Titans will benefit from the influence of College World Series veterans such as junior outfielder Josh Fellhauer, senior first baseman Jared Clark and senior second baseman Joe Scott.

The stadium atmosphere also might help.

“It’s a little bit easier because you’re not playing in front of a hostile crowd,” said Silva, the pitching coach at UC Irvine. “It’s a great crowd that just loves college baseball.”

Noe Ramirez said he recently spoke with Ricky Romero, a former Titans pitcher from East Los Angeles now with the Toronto Blue Jays. Romero played on Fullerton’s 2004 championship team.

“He told me there’s going to be some jitters,” Ramirez said. “But I think once I get out there I’ll be OK.

“This is going to be fun.”

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gary.klein@latimes.com