FULLERTON, Calif.-- Cal State East Bay played a midseason exhibition contest Saturday against Cal State Fullerton at Titan Gym and lost 75-52. The Pioneers record remains 1-4 in the CCAA and 5-7 overall. This game counted for Cal State Fullerton and improves their record to 7-6.

The Pioneers were able to get their deficit to as low as eight points in the first half and trailed 40-29 at the half, but weren't able to get any closer than the 11 point deficit they faced at halftime and now look forward to continuing conference play next week.

"Coach Taylor (Cal State Fullerton Head Coach Dedrique Taylor) has a quality team that makes runs and is athletic enough to guard in a variety of ways," said Cal East Bay Head Coach Gus Argenal. "We wanted to work on our defense and show improvement and I believe we did that."

The Pioneers shot 30.5% (18-59) from the field compared with 43.4% (23-53) for the Titans. Cal State East Bay was out rebounded 46-34. The Pioneers had 12 assists on the night to the Titans 10. The Pioneers' bench outscored the Titans bench 40-14.

Freshman Alex Manu, junior Marquise Tolson, junior Jacob Hohl, and freshman Jordan Balser all came off the bench and made significant contributions. Manu led all Pioneer scorers with with 14 points on 5-10 shooting and three steals. Tolson led all Pioneers with six rebounds in 23 minutes. Hohl had six points, three rebounds, and two blocks in 13 minutes of action. Balser led the team in assists with three.

"I really liked the energy we got from our bench and we need that production moving forward to this stretch in CCAA play," said Argenal. 

Cal State East Bay will once again be in Southern California next week for a pair of games. The first game is Thursday against Cal State San Marcos at 7:30 P.M.