Titan Men’s Soccer Team on a Roll in NCAA Tournament : College: Fullerton edges San Diego, 3-2, to advance to the quarterfinals this weekend.

The Cal State Fullerton men’s soccer team, bouncing around this season like an errant soccer ball, took an immediate turn on Sunday into the NCAA tournament’s final round of eight.

Kenny Hesse’s free kick into the upper left corner of the net with 5 minutes 40 seconds to play pushed the Titans past San Diego, 3-2, and moved them into this weekend’s quarterfinal game against San Francisco.

The Titans, ranked as high as fourth nationally at one point this year, dropped out of the top 20 by season’s end. But the Titans resurrected themselves and now have defeated Fresno State and San Diego on the road in consecutive tournament weekends.

“Three weeks ago I didn’t think we’d even be in the playoffs, let alone the top eight,” Fullerton Coach Al Mistri said. “That’s a tribute to West Coast soccer.

“Today, frankly, could have gone either way. I am very proud of our guys.”

Now, Mistri only hopes he can avoid the sort of treatment his program received the last time it won a game of Sunday’s significance--a victory over Nevada Las Vegas in 1986 to clinch the old Pacific Coast Athletic Assn. championship.

“The last time we won something big, they cut our budget 30%,” Mistri said, jokingly. “I sincerely hope that this doesn’t have that effect. We are trying very hard to find an identity. Up to now, the school doesn’t grade soccer as one of its most important sports.

“But any time you do something to put yourself in the top eight in the country, it’s pretty significant.”

Never before have the Titans (15-6) advanced to the third round of the Division I soccer tournament. Until Sunday, they hadn’t even played a second-round game since 1975.

But with one swing of Hesse’s leg in front of 3,615, soccer will suddenly be the talk of the campus this week.

Hesse lined up facing a wall of San Diego defenders with time running out and the momentum with the Toreros, who had tied the score, 2-2, only 13 minutes earlier. He sank his foot into the ball, sending it toward the right side of the San Diego line. It brushed against a Torero player’s head and curved left, nestling into the upper left corner of the net.

“I like to take those (free kicks) because I don’t do power shooting,” Hesse said. “I just like to place the ball.”

Said Mistri: “Kenny is lethal from that area. In sports, a certain amount of it is luck, but I’ve never had anybody else other than Rick Davis in high school who, from a particular spot, could knock the ball into the net with uncanny certainty.”

San Diego (14-7), which lost to Virginia in last year’s NCAA championship, scored first on Doug Barry’s kick in the 27th minute.

Fullerton tied the score, 1-1, in the 41st minute when Tony Jaime knocked in a penalty kick.

“I didn’t think it should have been a PK but it’s the referee’s decision and he made it,” San Diego Coach Seamus McFadden said. “It’s the fortunes of war, as we say in the business.”

It turned out to be a preview. Fullerton had made only one of five penalty kicks this season, but this day had “Titans” stamped all over it.

Paul McDonnell knocked in a pass from Eddie Soto at 58:31 to give Fullerton a 2-1 lead but, 13 minutes later, San Diego tied it when Matt Geske scored on a header off Toby Taitano’s corner kick.

The tie did not last long.

“I don’t believe we played our best game today,” Soto said, “but good teams find a way to win, and we did that.”

Now, the Titans will await their marching orders this morning. Because they didn’t figure to get this far, they didn’t bother to put in a bid with the NCAA to play host to a third-round game. The bracket says they play San Francisco, a 2-1 winner over St. Louis on Saturday, so the Titans will keep their bags packed.

The game will be either Saturday or Sunday. A spokesman for San Francisco said the Dons would like to play the game Sunday night because of the long weekend and the 49ers’ televised game against the Rams on Sunday afternoon.