Titans Pile Up Numbers With Win : McQuarn Gets 100th Fullerton Victory as Loyola Loses

George McQuarn won his 100th game as the coach at Cal State Fullerton Tuesday night. No big deal, he says. Feels just like the first, or the 75th, he says.

It had a remarkable resemblance to victories 98 and 99. For the third straight game, the Titans buried an opponent on their home court, pulling away from Loyola Marymount late in the first half en route to an 88-65 nonconference victory in front of 3,079 in Titan Gym.

Richard Morton had 23 points and Henry Turner had 22 to lead the Titans. Together, they made 7 of 10 shots from three-point range. Mike Yoest had a game-high 24 points for Loyola, and suffered a mildly sprained ankle with about eight minutes to play. Loyola Coach Paul Westhead said Yoest, the Lions’ leading scorer and second-leading rebounder, would be on a day-to-day basis.

For Fullerton, ranked No. 20 in the nation in the UPI Coaches’ poll, the numbers continue to mount. The victory was the Titans’ seventh straight, their longest winning streak since the 1978-79 team coached by Bobby Dye won eight in a row. The last five victories have come against teams that played in post-season tournaments last March. The last three have come by a total of 63 points.

But the numbers McQuarn was most pleased with were the ones on Loyola’s side of the scoreboard.

“Loyola was averaging 95 points a ballgame,” McQuarn said, “and they got 65 tonight. That ought to put it in perspective for you.”

Actually, the Lions entered the game averaging 96.3 points, and had broken the 100-point barrier three times in compiling a 5-3 record. They got off to a typically fast start against the Titans, but couldn’t maintain the pace.

Said Westhead: “What ultimately decided the game was they made a couple of great athletic plays at the end of the first half and the start of the second and we missed a bunch of free throws (Loyola was 16 of 27 from the line) that would have kept us in the game. Once they got a pretty good spread--12 or 14 points--they slowed the game down and we had to extend the defense and scramble.”

Turner and Morton combined to score 25 of Fullerton’s 43 first-half points and lead the Titans to a nine-point halftime lead. Loyola kept it close throughout most of the half and even took a 32-31 lead with 3:33 left in the half when Victor Lazzaretti, who made his first start of the season, got free inside for an easy basket.

But the Titans proceeded to outscore Loyola, 12-2, over the remainder of the half. Turner scored nine points in the spurt, including a one-handed, grab-and-dunk rebound with two seconds left before intermission, after the Titans had missed a last-shot attempt.

Yoest had 14 points in the first half for Loyola, hitting all five of his shots.

Fullerton continued to break it open by scoring nine unanswered points to start the second half. The Titans built a 62-42 lead with 13:45 to play.

Junior forward Derek Jones added 14 points and 7 rebounds for the Titans (7-1). Senior center Herman Webster also scored 14. Fullerton shot 57% (34 of 60) from the floor and outrebounded the Lions, 31-24. McQuarn said it took the Titans a while to adjust to the Lions’ fast-lane approach.

“Loyola’s probably the best transition team we’ve seen this year,” he said. “They’re better at running it than we are at defending it.

“But our conditioning and mental toughness took over. We wore ‘em down in the second half.”

Now, Fullerton will take its national ranking into a nonconference game against UCLA Monday night in Pauley Pavilion. Big deal?

“It’s something nice to have,” Turner said. “But we can’t forget how we got there.”