Winning Sloppy Game Gives Titans Emotional Lift

Cal State Fullerton’s Chris Dade just grimaced at the thought of how he and his Titan teammates would have felt if they hadn’t won Thursday night’s Big West Conference game against UC Irvine.

“If we had lost this game, it would really have hurt this team emotionally,” Dade said. “We had to somehow come out of this game with a win.”

Dade and the other Titans didn’t mind that their 51-48 victory was so ugly. At least it was a victory.

Fullerton had lost five of its last six games and eight of its last 10 before the victory in the first game of the season against the Anteaters.

The Titans (8-11, 3-6 in the conference) shot only 30.6% from the field, but managed to win with one solid two-minute stretch late in the game.

Irvine led, 40-39, before Dade made two free throws with slightly more than four minutes left. Dade pulled down a key rebound on Irvine’s next possession. Sophomore Ike Harmon made a three-point shot and two free throws for a six-point Titan lead.

“Everything had been off for me, so I was lucky the [three-point] shot fell,” Harmon said. “It gave us a little bit of a cushion. Both teams had a bad night on offense.”

Dade and Titan Coach Bob Hawking gave some of the credit for that to the effort on defense by both teams. Dade said Junior Bond covered him well.

“I think their objective was to limit my touches and they did a good job of that,” Dade said. “Their guy was always right on me.”

Dade connected on only three of 10 shots from the floor, and finished with 13 points, but that was the team high. Harmon was only two of 10 from the field and scored eight points.

Guard Chris St. Clair, who had made only one of 11 three-point shots Saturday against Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, also continued to struggle, making only one for six from field and missing all three three-point attempts.

“I’m just not shooting the ball well right now,” St. Clair said. “I think it’s all mental. But I’ll come out of it.”

St. Clair, however, made two important free throws with 21 seconds left after Irvine had cut the deficit to 46-42.

The victory kept the Titans from being alone in last place in the Western Division. Fullerton is tied with Long Beach State and San Luis Obispo for fourth, and only a game behind Irvine and UC Santa Barbara.

“The division games are really important,” Hawking said. “If we don’t win this game, we could be in deep trouble. But now we’re right back in the thick of things. There’s still a lot of basketball left to play.”

The Titans play at Utah State Saturday night. “We don’t mind at all playing on the road,” Hawking said.

All three Fullerton conference victories have come on the road, and the victory against Irvine was the Titans’ sixth in their last seven games in the Bren Center.