Long Beach Turns Back San Jose St.

Its 18-point lead down to 1, Cal State Long Beach met San Jose State’s challenge Sunday afternoon.

The 49ers kept their composure, as well as control of the boards, in the last 13 minutes and turned back the Spartans, 70-64, in a Big West game before 1,015 at Long Beach.

It was the third victory in the last 4 games for Long Beach (5-7 overall, 2-1 in the Big West). Not only have they improved their shooting in recent games, the 49ers showed that they are getting better in another category.

“The stat that really sticks out is the darned rebounding,” San Jose Coach Bill Berry said after the 49ers outrebounded the Spartans, 45-32.

“We blocked out well,” said Long Beach Coach Joe Harrington, who praised center John Hatten, who had 12 rebounds to go with 15 points.

Hatten and the rest of the 49ers got off to a great start, leading, 9-0, 19-3 and 27-9. Despite cooling off and scoring only 3 points in the last 6 minutes of the first half, they still led, 35-21, at intermission. Steve Haney, San Jose’s high-scoring guard (19 points a game), was held scoreless.

“We were flatter than a pancake; maybe we were rooting for the (San Francisco) 49ers, I don’t know,” Berry said.

But the Spartans (5-8, 1-3) came back, hitting 9 of their first 10 shots in the second half, mostly on fast breaks. When Rodney Scott laid one in after taking a pass from Dietrich Waters, the Spartans trailed, 44-43, with 13:39 left.

That was as close as they would come. Darrell Faulkner hit a jumper and followed with a layup after taking a long pass from Hatten, who rebounded a miss by Waters.

Then the 49ers, struggling from the foul line until then, made 7 of 8 free throws, including 4 straight by Rudy Harvey.

Another layup by Faulkner on a feed from Harvey and a basket by Hatten increased the lead to an 59-50 and offset a 5-point flurry by Haney, who finally got started.

“We had some good moments and some poor moments,” Harrington said. “I was proud the way our players hung in there. I like the improvement of our team.”

Faulkner had 14 points, as did Scott and Anthony Perry of San Jose. Haney finished with 8.