Tuesday, February 3, 2015

PORTLAND, Ore. – With two wins last week, Seattle Pacific is back to its winning ways as Saint Martin’s is finding its stride with four weeks to go in the regular season.

The Falcons moved into sole possession of second place after beating the two teams they were tied with at the beginning of last week, Simon Fraser and Western Washington.

SPU swept the season series with Simon Fraser for the first time since the Clan joined the GNAC in 2010. The Falcons also took the season series against the Vikings for the first time since the 2007-08 season.

Leading the team to these two victories was senior guard, and GNAC co-Player of the Week, Aubree Callen. She scored 43 points in the two wins, including the 1,000-point in her career.

Also reaching the 1,000-point mark was Montana State Billings’ Quinn Peoples. She accomplished the feat Thursday in MSUB’s loss to Western Washington.

Peoples and Callen are the sixth and seventh active GNAC players to reach the milestone. Six of these seven hit the plateau this season. Simon Fraser’s Erin Chambers is the only active player to reach the point mark last season. She is now only 106 points away from breaking the all-time GNAC scoring record.

Central Washington’s Courtney Johnson could join the list this week as well as she currently sits at 972 points.

Although its top score, Brooke Paulson, has 701 career points, the Saint Martin’s basketball team has positioned itself back in the conference race by pulling off three wins in a row.

The Saints beat two 2014 tournament teams last week, winning Team of the Week honors, before beating Western Oregon in their only game last week.

This is SMU’s first three-game win streak of the season and it’s first since winning three straight ending 2014.

SMU has allowed 55.6 points during the win streak, more than 10 less than its averaged all season, while having five players average at least 6.3 points.

Notes:

• The first official NCAA West Region Poll will be released Wednesday, Feb. 18. This poll is the first of three that will determine the five West Region at-large teams that will make the NCAA tournament along with the GNAC, Pac-West and CCAA champions.

• With Alaska Anchorage’s win over Northwest Nazarene Saturday, it becomes the sixth UAA team in GNAC history with at least 20 wins in a season. This is the first time coach Ryan McCarthy has accomplished the feat at Anchorage and the first time UAA has reached the 20-win mark since 2010-11.
   
• Northwest Nazarene shot 85.7 percent from the free throw line in route to 30 made shots against Alaska Anchorage. The 30 free throws were a season-high for the GNAC and Ellie Logan’s 11 was one short of the season-high.

• Western Washington‘s Katie Colard moved into second on the GNAC’s all-time three-point list after her five three’s last week. She is 21 away from breaking the record set by WWU alum Amanda Dunbar in 2011.

• Montana State Billings’ Kayleen Goggins and Seattle Pacific’s Callen were selected as GNAC co-Players of the Week. Goggins scored 50 points and recorded 10 rebounds in two games while Callen had 43, along with 19 rebounds, in two wins for the Falcons.