Big West Tournament : Women’s Semifinals : Titans Fail to Find Answer for Long Beach’s Pressure

When Sheryl Jones and the other Cal State Fullerton guards faced the full-court pressure of Cal State Long Beach Friday, they knew they faced trouble.

Their plan was to move the ball up slowly, with short passes out of the darting reaches of Traci Waites, Penny Toler and the other 49ers.

But try as they did, the Titans couldn’t escape the pressure, and seventh-ranked Long Beach sped to an 81-61 victory in a semifinal game of the Big West Conference women’s tournament in Long Beach Arena.

The 49ers, who are 27-4 and have won 20 games in a row, will play Nevada Las Vegas in the championship game at noon today.

Fullerton (21-8) will await word Sunday on whether it has earned a bid to the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. tournament.

That Long Beach defense helped force Fullerton into 30 turnovers--20 of them 49er steals.

Six of those steals were by Waites, who also scored 16 points, plenty of them on layups after steals.

Toler led Long Beach with 23 points, and Shameil Coleman added 15.

A fine performance by the Titans’ Gena Miller--29 points, 13 rebounds and six blocked shots--wasn’t enough to offset the effects of the 49ers’ defense. Kathy Werth added 12 for the Titans.

Long Beach won fairly handily despite not capitalizing on its defense. The 49ers shot only 41% from the floor.

Still, Long Beach jumped to a 28-14 lead and was up by 11 at halftime. After being down by as many as 17, Fullerton trailed by 12 with 4 minutes to go. But a Titan rally never materialized, and Long Beach scored the final seven points to make the score look like a blowout.

Appropriately enough, the final points came on a three-point play by Dana Wilkerson off--What else?--a steal and layup.

The Titans lost to 49ers twice during the regular season--but so did every other team in the conference.

But Fullerton, which played every other team close at least once and beat San Diego State three times, didn’t have much success against Long Beach.

The Titans lost by 34 points in Long Beach and 17 in Fullerton.

Fullerton turns its sights toward the postseason now.

“I definitely think they deserve to be in the NCAA,” Long Beach Coach Joan Bonvicini said. “I’d be very disappointed for them and the conference if they don’t get it.”

Fullerton Coach Maryalyce Jeremiah had to agree.

“This the first time it’s not just how many wins we have, but they’re against somebody that means something,” Jeremiah said. “We beat ranked teams, we beat teams on the road, and there’s the fact we beat teams that beat others. That makes 21 wins mean something.”