Long Beach Ends Losing Streak by Beating Titans With :05 Left

In the midst of celebration, Cal State Long Beach linebacker Phillip Morrison found teammate Stacey Alexander and clapped him on the shoulder pads.

“It’s about time,” Morrison told him.

That it was. After nine consecutive losses, Long Beach walked off the field a winner Saturday night, at the expense of Cal State Fullerton--the team with the offense with a strange knack for avoiding the end zone.

It took a 32-yard field goal by David VanSteenkiste with 5 seconds left, but the 49ers came away with a 24-22 victory over Fullerton, ending the longest losing streak in school history.

Long Beach had not won since the seventh game of last season, when it beat New Mexico State, a team that finished 2-9.

“We knew it was going to turn around. We just knew it,” said Jeff Graham, the 49er quarterback who threw for 229 yards and 2 touchdowns on 20-of-34 passing in front of a homecoming crowd of 7,582 at Veterans Stadium.

Graham directed the winning drive after Fullerton went ahead for the first time with 2:38 remaining to play, when Dan Speltz hit Rocky Palamara in the end zone with an 18-yard pass.

Fullerton led, 22-21, after the kick by Stan Lambert, whose 3 field goals in 3 attempts had kept the Titans in the game.

Palamara’s touchdown set off a raucous Fullerton celebration. But it ended quickly after a 40-yard kickoff return by Mark Seay gave Long Beach the ball at its 45-yard line. Graham went to work, completing 6 of 7 passes as the 49ers drove as deep as the 12.

On second and 13 from the 15, Long Beach took a time out and brought on Steenkiste, who nailed the field goal.

“I was just thinking, ‘This is there, baby, this is through.’ When I go on the field, it never enters my mind that I might miss. Of course, sometimes I do, but I never think about it.”

With that, Fullerton, which had looked like it might pull off a victory in the game despite gaining only 4 first downs, lost its third in a row and turned Long Beach’s streak around.

“It’s a terrible feeling to be on the end of a streak like that,” Palamara said.

VanSteenkiste, who has made a field goal from as far as 55 yards, had been waiting for the call.

“As soon as they went ahead, I said, ‘Hey, it’s up to me.’ ”

That Fullerton even was in a position to win was remarkable. The Titans fell behind, 14-0, in the first quarter, but cut the deficit to 14-6 by halftime on 2 field goals by Lambert.

The Titans closed it to 14-12 in the third quarter on Michael Moore’s 13-yard run, but the Titans’ two-point conversion attempt failed.

Graham threw to Brian Wiss for a 21-12 lead, but another Lambert field goal cut it to 21-15 going into the fourth quarter.

When Speltz, who completed 9 of 25 passes for 90 yards with 1 interception, found Palamara in the end zone on the touchdown that put Fullerton ahead for the first time, there was celebration galore on the Fullerton sidelines.

“We thought we were going to win,” Palamara said. “Everybody went crazy. The reaction was phenomenal. It hasn’t been that way all year.”

And it didn’t last any longer than it took for Seay to run the kickoff back 40 yards.

“We’d been in the end zone so few times this year, that’s why we got excited,” Fullerton Coach Gene Murphy said.

This was a loss that pretty much did in Fullerton’s hopes for the season.

“We’re out of the conference championship, that’s for sure,” Murphy said.

What’s more, the struggle now is to avoid having a losing season. Any loss in its final 5 games will give Fullerton (2-5 overall, 2-2 in conference) its second losing season in 3 years.

Last year’s team, with the benefit of a 12th game, salvaged a .500 season in the final game of the season.

“We don’t have 12 games this year,” Murphy said. “It’s the old thing, we’re playing for pride now.”

For much of the game, it was more of the same--offensive ineptitude. The major difference this week was that the defense struggled plenty, too.

“We struggled through the whole ball game. That’s been par for the course all year,” Palamara said. “The defense has been tough, but I think we put too much pressure on them sometimes.”

Fullerton’s wasted opportunities on offense, once again, were too many to count. Two of Lambert’s 3 field goals came after Fullerton failed to score a touchdown after getting a first and goal.

Even the final touchdown was managed only with the help of a fumble by Long Beach’s Andre Southerland, recovered by Mike Schaffel at the Long Beach 30.

Before that, Fullerton had failed to put anything together on several crucial fourth-quarter possessions.

As the Fullerton players quickly left the locker room without showering to board the buses, the Long Beach celebration went on.

“That part (the end of the 49er losing streak) will sink in later,” Murphy said. “That doesn’t make any difference right now. We just lost the dang ball game.”