Long Beach State University Athletics
49ers Fall At CSUN
1/13/2007 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Matadors Race Past 49ers
Johnson Leads 49ers With 23 Points
January 13, 2007
| MEN'S BASKETBALL | 1 | 2 | FINAL | RECORDS |
| Long Beach State | 31 | 52 | 83 | 11-5/2-1 |
| CS Northridge | 45 | 45 | 90 | 9-7/3-2 |
| Leading Scorers: LBSU: Kejuan Johnson 23; CSUN: Jonathan Heard 24 Leading Rebounders: LBSU: Sterling Byrd 8; CSUN: 2 with 8 | ||||
| BOX SCORE | ||||
NORTHRIDGE, CA-- Jonathan Heard scored 24 points and Terrell Jones added 14 as the Cal State Northridge Matadors came away with a 90-83 win over Long Beach State on Saturday evening at the Matadome. The loss snapped a nine-game 49er win streak and dropped Long Beach's record to 11-5 overall and 2-1 in the Big West Conference. Kejuan Johnson led the 49ers with 24 points. The Matadors improved to 9-7 and 3-2 in league action.
Trailing 45-31 at the half, the 49ers used a 14-5 run to open the second half to pull to within 50-45 at the 14:46 mark, only to see the Matadors push the lead back to double digits, 58-48 at 11:23. Long Beach once again got to within five at 61-56, but CSUN responded to push the advantage back to 10 points at 72-62 with 5:30 remaining.
"We did a better job of what we wanted to do defensively in the second half," said 49er Head Coach Larry Reynolds. "At that point we had a little bit of control. They did a good job of pushing the basketball and getting it to the basket. We didn't do a good job rebounding the basketball. You have to give a lot of credit to Northridge. They played hard and took it right to us and we weren't able to answer back."
Long Beach shot .467 (28-60) from the field for the game, but were 10-32 (.313) from three-point range and .630 (17-27) at the free throw line. Sterling Byrd added 18 points and eight rebounds for the 49ers and Aaron Nixon finished with 16.
Northridge out-rebounded the 49ers 37-27 and shot .536 (30-56) from the field. The Matadors were a perfect five-of-five from three-point range in the second half. Guard Rai Colston added 11 points off the bench for CSUN and four other players finished with nine points.
The Matadors led throughout the first half, opening up a 13-5 lead early and expanding it to 30-15 at the 7:02 mark. CSUN shot .571 (16-28) from the field in the half and were a perfect 11-11 (1.000) at the free throw line. Heard scored 13 of his 24 in the opening stanza while Jones added 11. The 49ers, who shot just .346 (9-26) from the field in the half, were led 10 points from Byrd and eight from Johnson. The Matadors pounded the 49ers on the boards as well, coming away with a 21-10 lead in the rebounding department. Of the 21 boards, seven were on the offensive glass. Each squad had nine first half turnovers.
The 49ers will next be in action on Thursday, January 18 when they host Cal State Fullerton at 7 pm at the Walter Pyramid.
