FULLERTON, Calif. --- The night started with a ceremony honoring Cal State Fullerton's seniors before the game tipped off. The upperclassmen made sure there was a celebration following the game as well.
Tre' Coggins led all scorers with 20 points and Lionheart Leslie had a tremendous all-around performance with eight points, eight rebounds, six assists and four steals as the Titans downed UC Santa Barbara, 65-54, Thursday night at Titan Gym on senior night.
"Always good to get a win," said Cal State Fullerton head coach Dedrique Taylor. "We battled through and figured out how to get a win.
The Titans (15-13, 9-6) led for the majority of the game despite a few scoring runs from the feisty Gauchos (5-22, 3-12), who outshot Fullerton 44.4 percent to 42.1 percent. The Titans ran out all four seniors in the starting lineup on Thursday night and the team came out firing, taking a double-digit lead early on.
"Our seniors were big for us, particularly Rich (Richard Peters) with his energy and his effort in the first half and even in the second half," Taylor said. "And this guy to my left (Lionheart Leslie); you can't say enough about the contribution he's made for our ball club and it's good to see this group of guys go out on top with a win. I'm excited for them, I'm appreciative for what they've done for us, and hopefully they can take some type of pleasure looking at what we've done this year."
Kyle Allman added 11 points on 4-for-8 shooting as he helped carry a bulk of the workload, playing 33 minutes on the night. Khalil Ahmad was the only other player to log 20-plus minutes on the night as he scored nine points in 24 minutes of play. The Titans had 13 players log some playing time on the night.
The Titans also outrebounded the Gauchos, 34-31 including a 10-6 edge on the offensive glass. Fullerton also turned it over a season-low eight times while forcing 12 turnovers on the defensive end, converting those mistakes for an 18-7 edge in points off turnovers.
For the Gauchos, Clifton Powell led the way with 14 points while Eric Childress scored 10 points on the night.
The Titans came out of the gate hot, outscoring the Gauchos 25-10 in the first 10 minutes. Coggins erupted for 14 points on 5-for-13 shooting and 4-of-11 from distance in the first half. But UC Santa Barbara would not go away, going on a 10-2 scoring run at one point to cut the deficit to four before Coggins hit another three to put Fullerton up seven at the break.
The Gauchos continued to chip away in the second half, outscoring Fullerton 13-8 in the first 5:51 of the second half to trim the deficit to just two points.
"I thought we just went away from what got us that 16-point lead," Taylor said. "I thought focus changed. I thought our energy changed and Santa Barbara's not a team that quits and they put the heat on us and thankfully we were able to respond and regain our focus in spurts there."
But Leslie and Ahmad converted back-to-back layups along with a free throw to regain the seven-point advantage.
"Last home game, I was just going to give it my all like the rest of the games," Lionheart Leslie said after the game.
The Gauchos persisted though, trimming it back down to three with 7:04 left in the game. Arkim Robertson was able to hit a reverse layup from under the basket and then Davon Clare hit a jumper in the lane to build it up to seven once more.
Then, with the shot clock winding down and a defender all over him, Coggins went up, double clutched and fired a corner three that found the bottom of the net to put Fullerton up double digits and the Titans never looked back.
The Titans wrap up the regular season with a 12-3 record at Titan Gym and have won seven of their last nine games heading into Saturday night's season finale at CSUN, which lost to Cal Poly on Thursday night.
"Coach told us from the beginning of the season that it wasn't going to be easy," Leslie said. "We started off slow and now that we kind of have a good grasp of how the team plays we feel like we're going to be fine. We know where we're at now and we know what we can do."
NOTES: Freshman Jackson Rowe (left foot) did not play Thursday night for the first time this season and is listed as day-to-day… Leslie recorded four steals for the fourth straight game on Thursday night and has now tallied 21 steals in his last six games… Thursday marked the first time this season that Fullerton won a game when only two or fewer players score in double figures… The Titans previous season-low in turnovers was nine, which occurred on Feb. 2 at UCSB… Leslie set a new career best with six assists, eclipsing his previous high of five, which occurred on Dec. 4, 2015 at Seattle… Nine different Titans recorded a point on Thursday night… Fullerton swept the season series from UC Santa Barbara for the first time since the 2008-09 season.
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