Pepperdine Edges Loyola

Tashaan Forehan-Kelly had a night to remember. And his Pepperdine teammates helped to make sure it was a good memory.

The senior guard scored a career-high 35 points Saturday, and the Waves held off visiting Loyola Marymount, 70-62, in a West Coast Conference game at Firestone Fieldhouse.

“I was feeling it during the shootaround today,” said Forehan-Kelly, who made 10 of 17 shots from the field and 13 of 16 from the free-throw line. “I had spent all week working on my shot. You put in the work, and it will happen.”

Pepperdine Coach Paul Westphal said moving the 6-foot-4 Forehan-Kelly from small forward to shooting guard, his natural position, was also key.

“He was playing out of position by necessity until last game,” Westphal said. He was playing the ‘3’ because all our big guys were hurt and we had to play small.

“This is his best position and he’ll score what he scores. If he has the opportunity, he has the green light to shoot.”

In improving to 7-12 overall and 3-4 in the conference, Pepperdine also got 16 points from freshman guard Michael Gerrity.

Despite the loss Loyola (8-13, 5-2), which had 21 points from Matthew Knight and 20 from Brandon Worthy, is off to its best conference start since 1989-90. But Coach Rodney Tention saw some things Saturday he didn’t like besides the fact that his team shot only 33.3% (21 of 63) from the field.

“We had a lack of patience on the offensive end,” Tention said. “We forced shots from the start. In our first possession we took a bad shot, which we have not been doing. And when you take one bad one, it leads to another one.

“But we’re 5-2 still; we’re in second place. So it is a minor setback. But we’ve got to get back on the edge. They were the tougher team, and that hasn’t been the case for us recently.”

Neither team started fast, but once Pepperdine got settled, the Waves rolled.

A three-point basket by Forehan-Kelly at the 9:54 mark put the Waves in front, 13-11, and was key to a 12-2 run that pushed Pepperdine in front, 20-13. More important, it gave Pepperdine the momentum to stay in control the rest of the half. The Waves led, 33-24, at halftime.

Loyola chipped away at Pepperdine’s lead all through the second half but could only get as close as 58-54 with 3:26 to play.

-- Mike Terry

UC Irvine 73 , Long Beach State 67 -- Darren Fells had 19 points and 10 rebounds as the Anteaters (12-8, 8-0) held off a furious late rally by the 49ers (9-9, 4-3) to win a Big West Conference game at Long Beach.

The victory was the eighth in a row for first-place UC Irvine.

Despite the loss, Long Beach State (9-9, 4-3) is tied for second place in the conference. Jibril Hodges led the 49ers with 24 points.

Ross Schraeder had 16 points for UC Irvine and Aaron Fitzgerald chipped in with 13.

Irvine held a 19-point lead with 9:03 to play, but Long Beach outscored the Anteaters, 36-20, over the next eight minutes, getting away for several fastbreak dunks that ignited the home crowd.

Shawn Hawkins made a three-pointer for Long Beach to make it 70-67 with 45 seconds to play, but UC Irvine ran down the clock and scored on a layup by Adam Templeton with 18 seconds left for a 72-67 lead.

Cal State Fullerton 94, UC Davis 92 -- Jermaine Harper scored 21 points and Justin Burns had 14 points and 16 rebounds to help the Titans (10-8) hold off the Aggies (6-14) in triple overtime in a nonconference game at Davis.

Bobby Brown had 17 points, Frank Robinson had 13 and John Clemmons chipped in 10 for the Titans.

Phil Rasmussen had 25 points and 13 rebounds to lead Davis. Thomas Juillerat had 12 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists for his first career triple-double. Rommel Marentez scored 16 points and Kyle Brucculeri had 14 for UC Davis.

After two low-scoring overtime periods in which each team scored only four points, Fullerton began the third overtime with a 13-1 run to take an 89-77 lead with 1:14 left.

UC Davis responded with an 8-1 run before the Titans sealed it at the free-throw line.

Cal Poly San Luis Obispo 73, Cal State Northridge 54 -- Tyler McGinn scored a career-high 28 points to lead the Mustangs (6-12, 4-3) over the Matadors (8-9, 2-4) in a Big West game at San Luis Obispo.

The junior McGinn made 10 of 16 shots from the field, including six of 11 from three-point range.

Derek Stockalper had 10 points and 12 rebounds for Cal Poly.

Mike Efevberha scored 14 points off the bench to lead Cal State Northridge, and Jonathan Heard scored 12.

The Mustangs shot 51.1% to the Matadors’ 37.7%.

Trailing, 14-11, in the first half, Cal Poly went on a 14-0 run capped by a McGinn jumper and did not trail again. The Mustangs led by 13 at the half, and the Matadors got no closer than eight points in the second half.

Pacific 65, UC Santa Barbara 53 -- The Tigers (14-6, 4-2) defeated the Gauchos (7-11, 1-6) in a Big West game at Santa Barbara to give Coach Bob Thomason his 300th career victory.

Christian Maraker had 20 points and seven rebounds to lead Pacific.

Cecil Brown scored 17 to lead UC Santa Barbara and Chris Devine scored 12.

The Gauchos scored the first 10 points of the second half to take a 39-38 lead, and led, 47-42, with 10 minutes to play.

Pacific then went on an 11-0 run that included seven points from Steffan Johnson.

From the Associated Press