Titans Hold Off Anteaters : Basketball: Cal State Fullerton stops UC Irvine rally to win, 86-83, for its first conference victory of the season.

IRVINE —  It had been a long, wearying stretch since Cal State Fullerton’s last victory, and Agee Ward stood on the court of the Bren Center after the Titans’ 86-83 victory over UC Irvine and put it in perspective.

“Tonight was just like a penicillin shot, just like Coach said. It cures everything,” Ward said.

Before Saturday, Fullerton had lost four games in a row, and hadn’t won since a Dec. 28 victory over Drake. A week ago, the stress of the season helped put Coach John Sneed in the hospital for several hours, fighting dehydration brought on by a gastro-intestinal disorder.

A victory--even one that went from routine to desperately close in the final minute--was enough to make the Titans feel hale and hardy again.

Fullerton’s first Big West Conference victory of the season didn’t come easily in the end, even if it was over a team that has lost six games in a row.

The Titans (5-8, 1-3) held a 13-point lead with 1:40 left before a furious Irvine comeback brought the Anteaters as close as three points with 51 seconds remaining. Four times in the final minute, Irvine pulled within three, partly with the help of a couple of botched inbound plays by Fullerton, and the clutch outside shooting of Keith Stewart.

Irvine Coach Rod Baker wasn’t happy that his team was down by 13 in a game he thought the Anteaters could win, but he praised what he saw in the final two minutes.

“It speaks about the heart of this team, its unwillingness to give up,” Baker said. “Once again, we had every opportunity to fold, but we turned it up. We waited too long though. We waited until our backs were behind the wall.”

Fullerton took what had been a nip-and-tuck game in the first half and turned it into a fairly well-controlled Titan lead in the second, going up by double digits with a 9-0 run that gave the Titans a 51-40 lead with 13:37 left.

Irvine still trailed, 78-65 with a little more than a minute and a half left when Stewart knocked the lead down to 10 with a three-pointer at the 1:31 mark.

With 1:04 left, Jeff Von Lutzow narrowed the gap to nine with a dunk. Then Fullerton blew an inbound play when Kim Kemp stepped on the line, giving Irvine the ball under its basket. Gerald McDonald’s quick three-pointer cut the lead to six with a minute left.

Stunningly, Fullerton committed another turnover on the next inbound play, with Elgin Rogers grabbing a swatted ball and quickly scoring as Kemp fouled him. Rogers, who scored a career-high 25 points, made the free throw, and Fullerton was hanging on by a 79-76 thread with 51 seconds left.

The Anteaters probably lost their best opportunity to get closer when Fullerton got its own rebound after Aaron Sunderland missed two free throws with 39 seconds left and the Titans still up by only three. Instead of having a chance to tie the score, Irvine had to put the Titans’ Joe Small on the line, and he made both for a five-point lead.

Irvine (3-11, 0-5) cut it to three a final time with 6.6 seconds left, but the Anteaters had no timeouts left. Small took the ball out of bounds and let seconds tick away before flinging it into the air.

“I’m very happy with our win, don’t get me wrong,” Sneed said. “I’m a little disappointed with the last minute and 30 seconds. I think our guys thought the game was over.”

Irvine was hoping it wasn’t, but while Fullerton’s streak ended, the Anteaters’ goes on. Baker is wearing the scruffy beginnings of a beard after vowing not to shave until the Anteaters win.

Irvine did make progress Saturday, scrapping some of its offensive schemes and going to a simpler motion offense. The improvement was marked, and Irvine shot 54% for the game, only the second time it has shot better than 50% this season.

Fullerton could measure its progress in the victory column.

Sunderland led the Titans with a career-high 23 points and five assists, and Agee Ward scored 19, making eight of 11 shots. Small scored 16 points, making five of 12 shots and showing signs of emerging from a shooting slump in the second half.

Irvine was led by Rogers, but Von Lutzow had 15 points and 11 rebounds, and Gerald McDonald scored 15 points on five three-pointers.

Notes

The game’s intensity spilled over into a tussle between players after the buzzer as Cal State Fullerton’s Bruce Bowen and UC Irvine’s Uzoma Obiekea tangled leaving the court. Bowen said Obiekea swung at him after the two exchanged words, and claimed Obiekea had been standing on his feet on inbound plays. Obiekea, who is Nigerian, said Bowen called him “a . . . African,” and that he took offense . . . Cal State Fullerton assistant coach Mike Bokosky, an Irvine assistant from 1980 until last season, was greeted warmly by the Anteater players during their pregame shootaround . . . Fullerton was without Kevin Ahsmuhs (back trouble) and Greg Vernon, who had a concussion after a practice last week. Gabe Higa (ankle) sat out for Irvine.