Long Beach Triumphs on Cheevers’ Field Goal

Cal State Long Beach Coach George Allen has said all season that his team plays hard for 60 minutes. He said it again Saturday after the 49ers defeated Cal State Fullerton, 37-35, on a 20-yard field goal by Sean Cheevers with six seconds left before 7,042 in Veterans Stadium.

“These guys have played hard every down every game,” Allen said after the 49ers kept alive their hope of a winning season by improving to 4-5 overall and 3-3 in the Big West Conference. “I’ve never had a bunch of guys who have worked harder than this group of kids.”

It had appeared that the Titans (1-8, 0-4) would break their seven-game losing streak after Long Beach lost the ball on downs on the Fullerton 42-yard line with 2:37 to play.

But 23 seconds later, Fullerton quarterback Paul Schulte surprised the 49ers by running a bootleg on a second-and-nine play on the Titan 45.

Pepper Jenkins forced a fumble on the play and Ed Lair recovered to set up the 49ers’ final drive on the Fullerton 44.

Fullerton Coach Gene Murphy said, “It was a planned play. We figured we would get a first down and that would be the game. They were out of timeouts.”

Long Beach quarterback Todd Studer didn’t need one. He hit Mark Seay on a 19-yard pass and then, on third and 15 at the 35, threw to the 20 to Jeff Exum. Exum was hit late on the play by cornerback Darrell Bruce, and the resulting 10-yard penalty put the ball on the 10. After a seven-yard run by Jeff Fassett, Cheevers kicked the winning field goal.

The wild game had more than 1,000 yards in total offense.

Seay caught nine passes for 162 yards and a touchdown and returned six kickoffs for 119 yards.

Schulte completed 20 of 34 passes for a personal-record 343 yards and three touchdowns. Studer completed 21 of 40 for 346 yards and two touchdowns.

The 49ers led for the first time, 34-28, when they scored early in the fourth quarter on a two-yard run by Fassett that culminated a 95-yard drive. Seay caught three passes for 53 yards during the drive and also ran 17 yards on a reverse.

Fullerton quickly regained the lead, 35-34, on a 15-yard pass from Schulte to Richard Harrison. But the Titans lost a chance to increase their lead when Phil Nevin missed a 32-yard field-goal attempt with eight minutes to play.