FULLERTON, Calif. – Senior Jennifer Stuart recorded her second clean sheet of the season as Cal State Fullerton edged Long Beach State, 1-0, in a Big West Conference tilt Sunday night at Titan Stadium.
"Today's game is another great example of what the competition level is inside of the Big West Conference," said Titans head coach Demian Brown. "Long Beach is a tremendous team and I thought our women gave a tremendous effort against a very good team."
Stuart recorded seven saves including four in the second half to lead the Titans (6-8-0, 3-1-0) to their third conference victory in four matches. Meanwhile, the Titans were fortunate on the other end as their lone goal of the night came on a miscue by the 49ers (6-6-2, 2-1-1), who suffered their first conference loss of the year.
Stuart returned to action after missing the last two matches with an elbow injury suffered during pregame warmups against Cal Poly on Oct. 2.
"This is my last season and I want to get every single minute I can and take advantage of every minute that I have and use it to my fullest," Stuart said. "So when I stepped out on that field tonight I was feeling confident, I was feeling good and I just wanted to do well for my team tonight."
The Titans defense was put to the test on Sunday, particularly in the second half as the 49ers mounted the pressure and outshot Fullerton 11-1 in the second half.
"I think our defense was pretty solid tonight," Stuart said. "Long Beach was putting more and more players up top and we just kept knocking it back at them, which I thought was great and I'm really happy with our defense this game."
The Titans took the lead in the 18th minute when they were awarded a free kick from near midfield out near the far sideline. Lindsay Stasinis took the kick and delivered it right to the edge of the six-yard box, but a 49ers defender was able to head the ball straight up for goalkeeper Ashton McKeown. The 49ers net-minder went straight up to try and catch the ball with both hands cupped, but the ball's spin caused it to roll off her waiting palms and bounced behind her. McKeown tried to recover back to stop the ball but was too late as it took a pair of hops and crawled behind the goal line for an own goal to give the Titans what would be the only score of the match.
"When I take a free kick I just focus on the proper place where I'm supposed to put it and it went in a pretty good place so I'm happy with how it worked out," Stasinis said.
The Titans defense and Stuart held on to the one-goal lead for the final 72 minutes. The match also featured 21 combined fouls and five bookings.
"It's a rivalry game within a very competitive Big West Conference and I thought that, whereas there was nothing dirty or overt, I did think it was a very hard contested match," Brown said.
Fullerton will hit the road for their next three matches, beginning with Oct. 16 at UC Santa Barbara, a team that has split its first two conference games but holds the best overall record in the conference at 10-2-1.
Notes: Stuart recorded her 31st career victory, which ranks second all-time for Cal State Fullerton… Sunday was also Stuart's 15th career shutout, which ranks third all-time. She is now just one back of second-place Lindsay Maricic (16, 2010-13), who Stuart backed up when she arrived at Cal State Fullerton… Atlanta Primus received two yellow cards on Sunday in the 88th minute… The Titans improved to 11-8-2 all-time against Long Beach State and 4-5-1 against the 49ers at Titan Stadium.