Long Beach Beats Irvine for Fifth Straight Win

As expected, Cal State Long Beach will travel to Nevada Las Vegas for a game with the Runnin’ Rebels Thursday night. That is how the schedule has read for months.

But brace yourself for this little footnote:

When the 49ers do step onto the floor at Thomas and Mack Center, they will be playing for . . . first place .

Yes, Cal State Long Beach, after two 10th-place finishes and a 5-31 Pacific Coast Athletic Assn. record in two seasons under Coach Ron Palmer, is 5-1 and a half-game behind Las Vegas after beating UC Irvine, 78-71, Monday night at the 49ers’ University Gym.

The victory was the fifth straight for Long Beach (10-8 overall), the 49ers’ longest winning streak since 1980.

But to get a true gauge on how far Long Beach has come, listen to Palmer when he talks of his team’s impending confrontation with 16-1 Las Vegas.

Palmer is talking about winning.

“It’s conceivable, it’s conceivable,” he said. “We’d have to play phenomenal--and we’d have to play that way for 40 minutes, not 30. But we are a different ballclub this year.”

Irvine (9-8, 4-4) fell behind by as many as 15 points in the second half, staged a rally to pull within one and then saw its hopes of victory sink with Long Beach guard Morlon Wiley’s shot with 47 seconds left.

Two free throws by Scott Brooks cut the 49ers’ lead to 70-69 with 1:32 remaining. Long Beach then floundered around for half a minute, passing the ball nervously around the perimeter before getting it to Wiley. Wiley backed in on Brooks and, with one second left on the shot clock, swished an 19-foot jumper that floored Irvine.

“I never thought they’d get the shot off,” Irvine Coach Bill Mulligan said. “That completely broke our backs.”

Said Brooks: “I was right in his face . . . and he just buried it. That just broke us.”

Irvine was also hurt by some self-inflicted damage. After losing to UC Santa Barbara Saturday while getting outscored, 20-0, in one second-half stretch, the Anteaters plunged into another offensive lull Monday. During the last 12 minutes of the first half and the first six of the second half, Irvine was outscored by Long Beach, 42-17.

That turned a 17-7 Irvine lead into a 49-34 Long Beach advantage--a deficit the Anteaters never could fully erase.

Long Beach’s scoring was typically balanced. Wiley led the 49ers with 17 points, followed by Tony Ronzone with 14 and Rigo Moore with 12.

Brooks had 23 points for Irvine, 9 coming from the free-throw line. From the field, Brooks was just 6 of 15. The Anteaters also received 17 points from Frank Woods and 13 from Wayne Engelstad.