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Another slow start and shorthanded finish doomed Long Beach State men’s baseball on Thursday night at Walter Pyramid in a 76-71 loss to Cal State Fullerton.
The Titans (13-16, 6-11) led by as 16 points in the first half before the Beach (18-11, 10-7) used a 16-0 run in the second half to take a lead. LBSU led by six when forward Aboubacar Traore was ejected with a Flagrant 2 foul, and with leading scorer Marcus Tsohonis already on the bench injured, the Beach was unable to hold onto the lead down the stretch.
“Fullerton did a great job, they hit us early and put us on our heels,” LBSU coach Dan Monson said. “We recovered and hit them back to take control of the game, but the Flagrant 2 on (A. Traore), with (Tsohonis) and him out we had some odd lineups out there.”
LBSU’s Jadon Jones sparked the second-half run and finished with a team-high 23 points on five made 3-pointers to go with five rebounds, two assists and three blocks. Lassina Traore (10 points, 11 rebounds) and A. Traore (12 points, 12 points) both had double-double performances and A. Traore dished out a team-high six assists. LBSU had 17 assists on 24 made baskets but only shot 38.7 percent from the floor.
Fullerton got a game-high 26 points and six assists from guard Dominic Brewton, who went 7/8 from the free throw line where he won the game late for the Titans.
“It was a disappointing loss,” Monson said. “I didn’t think we played with energy and hard enough. I’ve got to address that. If we would’ve had a little deeper bench I would’ve pulled some guys early to get them going. But at the end of the day if we defended we would’ve won it.”
When Fullerton had its biggest lead of the game with four minutes left until halftime, Jones and Chayce Polynice drilled 3-pointers as part of an 8-0 run that cut the lead in half 34-26.
The Beach opened the second half on its 16-0 run (and 20-2 run from the first half) that included more big plays from Jones on either side of the floor. LBSU took an eight-point lead at the 11:39 mark, but then three minutes later A. Traore made contact with the face of a Fullerton player. The referees took their time looking at the play and assigning a Flagrant 2 ejection.
“We lost, the officials are part of the game,” Monson said. “There’s calls going both ways. It was a very physical game and a hard game to call.”
Down 68-64, LBSU tied it up with a 3-pointer from Messiah Thompson, and then took the lead with an AJ Goerge three-point play with 1:33 remaining. A foul was called on the Beach over every ensuing Titan possession the rest of the game, and Fullerton closed out the game from the charity stripe.
“(Late in the game) we fouled them, we got tired,” Monson said. “And offensively, people are playing us physical inside and we’re not responding, and when we got to the line we didn’t make them pay.”
George got another start and had another big night for LBSU with 15 points, six rebounds and three assists.
Fullerton scored 18 points off of 13 LBSU turnovers while only turning the ball over six times.
LBSU is now fourth in the Big West Conference standings with three games left against first-place UC Irvine, second-place UC San Diego and sixth-place UC Santa Barbara. UCSD is not eligible for the conference tournament so the Beach can win its way into a two-seed for the tournament.
“We have to move on, we know what we have left,” Monson said. “We’ve still got two weeks to figure this out and we’ve got to use every day to do it. If we can go win at Irvine (on Saturday) it will change the whole narrative.”
“I believe in this team, and I believe this team can win the tournament,” he added. “We’ve shown in stretches that we can play with anybody in (Big West) but we’ve got to be more consistent with it.”
