UC Irvine Reverses Roles With Fullerton, Wins, 81-73

UC Irvine may be a running, gunning team that was averaging 91.2 points before Thursday, and Cal State Fullerton a team that plays so deliberately it had scored only 37 points in its last game, but you never would have known it in the last 10 minutes Thursday night.

There was Irvine, with a 12-point lead and 10 minutes to play, spreading the offense. And there was Fullerton, running an offense that quickly became the Richard Morton special--shoot from anywhere, quickly.

It ended in a 81-73 Irvine victory before 3,106 at Titan Gym, the Anteaters’ third over the Titans in the past four meetings.

Center Wayne Engelstad scored 20 points and Frank Woods added 19 for the Anteaters (6-5 overall, 1-1 in the Pacific Coast Athletic Assn.), who broke a three-game losing streak.

Morton, who has carried the bulk of the Fullerton scoring load all season, scored more than half of the Titans’ points, finishing with a career-high 38--the most by a Fullerton player since the program moved up to Division I in 1975.

Morton made 14 of 22 shots, including four three-pointers without a miss in the final three minutes.

Irvine helped its cause with a blistering shooting percentage. The Anteaters shot a school-record 80% in the second half (16 of 20), and finished the game at 67%.

“If we’d played like we played against Santa Barbara, we’d have been beaten by 40 points,” said Bill Mulligan, Irvine coach.

They didn’t, and weren’t.

UC Santa Barbara beat the Anteaters, 81-78, Monday night.

For the Titans (4-8, 0-3), it was Morton and little else.

“You got that right,” said George McQuarn, Fullerton coach.

Henry Turner, who scored 13, was the only other Titan to score more than six.

“We have a hard time scoring,” McQuarn said. “I think everybody sees it. We’re having a very, very difficult time scoring.”

The Titans were without starter Bobby Adair, who has been suspended from the team indefinitely. McQuarn would say little more than that Adair’s suspension was for an incident that occurred during practice Tuesday but volunteered that it was “not drug-related.”

Adair, a 6-foot 8-inch junior, started 9 of 11 games, averaging 6.9 points and 4.3 rebounds a game.

Turner, who averaged 25 points a game during a five-game stretch this season, struggled for the third straight game. He finished the first half with three fouls--all on offense--and four points.

Two games ago, in a loss to Cal State Long Beach, foul trouble limited Turner to just 6 points in 14 minutes. In a loss to New Mexico State Monday night, Turner scored only 8 points.