The horrific sounds of Bolton recently rang through the ears of Sacramento State’s men’s basketball team. No, the sound was not Michael Bolton’s latest CD, but rather the swish of Anthony Bolton’s newfound jump shot.

The Fullerton forward scored 20 points off the bench, leading the Titans (2-6) to a 62-54 upset victory over Sacramento State (4-5) on Saturday night in Hornet Gym.

Bolton had made only 7-of-39 field goals in the six games leading up to Saturday night, but made 7-of 10 from the floor against the Hornets.

“He took good shots,” Fullerton head coach Donny Daniels said. “He made (2-of-2) threes; he got 10 rebounds; he took care of the basketball; he only had two turnovers. You know, he played well.”

Bolton also played a lot – 37 minutes – largely because the Titans were without their top-two big men. 6-foot-10 center Pape Snow, the team’s second leading scored and leading rebounder, missed the game due to disciplinary reasons, while backup center Babacar Camara left the game early in the first half with a severely injured ankle.

“What hurt us I think was (Daniel’s) big guys being hurt, because he was able to put all his guards in and that hurts us,” Hornet head coach Jerome Jenkins said.

Starting shooting guard Ralphy Holmes led the Titans with 21 points and 11 rebounds.

With a Titan roster depleted to seven players (six on scholarship), Daniels implemented a box-and-one defense, in which he played only Hornet shooting guard Brandon Guyton man-on-man.

The defense worked, as Guyton scored only six points and the Titans outrebounded the Hornets, 41-22.

“We did (the box-and-one) on Guyton just so he doesn’t get the open look, just so he doesn’t run off three in a row, or something like that,” Daniels said. “He only got three shots off and he leads the team in shot attempts.”

For Jenkins, the unique defense was unexpected.

“That surprised us a little bit, because it wasn’t in our scouting report, because they hadn’t shown it all year,” he said. “But to their credit, they had to do it to make us feel a little bit uncomfortable.”

With Guyton blanketed by the Titan defense, the Hornets went to center Tony Champion, who finished with a team-high 13 points and fouled out late in the second half.

“We just came out complacent,” Champion said. “We didn’t really have any fire in us. It was kind of weird. I don’t know if it was having a week off with out games. We just didn’t have it, and they just wanted it more than us tonight.”

The Hornets have now dropped two-straight games since their three-game winning streak earlier in the month, and Jenkins is looking to senior forward Derek Lambeth to help pull the team together.

“Derek’s our captain, so Derek’s the one that really fuels our fire,” Jenkins said. “He knows we got a little bit content; he knows we didn’t play well.”

Lambeth does know.

“We’ve got to regroup, just get our focus back, get out hunger back,” Lambeth said. “That’s why they beat us. They were hungry.

“Our first seven, eight games we were hungry, we wanted to come out and win. We came out today and let them take the game to us.”

Lambeth finished the game with 11 points, while freshman point guard DaShawn Freeman had 10 points, six assists and six steals, while committing six turnovers.

The Hornets will next head on a seven-game road trip in which they will travel to seven different states. The Hornets will first travel to Idaho to take on the University of Idaho on Dec. 27.