It’s Defense to Rescue for Errant Pepperdine

On a night Pepperdine would have had trouble throwing the ball into the nearby ocean, at least it came to play defense.

The Waves weathered another poor shooting performance by stopping Cal State Fullerton with four steals in the final two minutes en route to a 65-61 victory Tuesday night before 1,323 at Firestone Fieldhouse in Malibu.

Pepperdine (4-1) made only 22 of 58 field goals (37.9%)--shooting under 40% for the third time in five games--but guard Jelani Gardner scored 16 of his 20 points in the second half and defense did the rest.

“With the exception of a stretch in the first half, I thought we played exceptional defense,” said Coach Lorenzo Romar, whose team limited Fullerton to 20-of-60 shooting (33.3%). “It wasn’t pretty on the offensive end, but we got it done at the other end.”

The Titans (3-2), led by Chris Dade with a game-high 21 points, had a three-game winning streak broken.