Saturday, March 10, 2012

Center Taylor Rohde scored 32 points tying his career high in leading Alaska Anchorage to a 80-68 victory over Montana State Billings Friday in the opening round of the NCAA Division II West Regionals at WWU's Sam Carver Gymnasium.

The Seawolves (23-6), the No. 2 seed, avenged a loss to the Yellowjackets in last Saturday's GNAC championship game at Lacey. They'll play No. 3 seed Seattle Pacific which eliminated Dixie State 70-68 in Saturday's first semifinal game at 5 p.m.

The second semifinal at 7:30 p.m. will match top-seed Western Washington which built a 25-point first-half lead and then helnd on to defeat Grand Canyon 79-73 and fifth-seed Chico State, which eliminated Humboldt State 76-68.

UAA never trailed after two Rohde free throws put the Seawolves ahead 10-8 with 13:40 left in the first half, but never had the game securely in its grasp until the final moments either.

The Seawolves' biggest lead until the final minute was 11 points. After grabbing a 32-26 lead at halftime, a three-pointer by Kyle Fossman early in the second half put the Seawolves up 44-33 with 15:33 remaining.

MSUB climbed back to within three first at 48-45 and then later at 50-47 but Travis Thompson hit a trey to put UAA ahead 53-47 with 10:58 remaining.

UAA rebuilt its lead to 10 (67-57) with 5:29 left. Forward Robert Mayes, who led MSUB with 29 points, then scored the next five points cutting his team's deficit to five points (67-62) with 4:07 left.

UAA, however, quickly re-established its double-digit advantage scoring the next six points, as Rohde, the GNAC and Daktronics West Region Player-of-the-Year, hit two free throws, guard Colton Lauwers nailed his third trey of the game and point guard Steve White added a foul shot for a 73-62 lead with 2:24 left.

In addition to Rohde, who reached 30 points for the third time in six career games with MSUB, Alaska Anchorage also got 18 points from Fossman, who made four of six treys, and 10 from White.

Antoine Proctor joined Mayes in double figures for MSUB with 13 points. Proctor also had nine rebounds and seven assists.

Alaska Anchorage blistered the nets at a 60 percent pace, making 27 of 45, including 10 of 17 from the arc.

“Any time you shoot close to 60 percent you're going to win most of those,” UAA coach Rusty Osborne said. “Taylor (Rohde) did a good job inside and our guards showed a lot of poise every time Billings made a run.”

“You have to credit Anchorage, they were, by far, the better team today,” MSUB first-year coach Jamie Stevens said. “Rhode played like the all-region player he is. We didn't have an answer for him, we tried to do a couple of things differently defensively on him, but he's just hard to stop one-on-one.”

Montana State Billings, which pulled three upset wins last week to win the GNAC title and qualify for the West Regional tournament, finished its season at 18-12.

Seattle Pacific 70, Dixie State 68

Forward Jake Anderson scored a career-high 24 points including 15 in the final 11:40 of the second half leading Seattle Pacific to a win over Dixie State. The Falcons, the No.3 seed in the West Regional, improved to 22-7.

In addition to Anderson, Seattle Pacific also got 18 points each from center Andy Poling and guard David Downs. Forward Griffon Jones and guard Maurice Cole led sixth-seeded Dixie State (20-7) with 19 points each.

Anderson's 24 points bettered his previous career high of 17 against Saint Martin's on Jan. 1, 2011. His season high was just 11, which he accomplished just twice this season.

With his team trailing 52-49 with less than 12 minutes left, Anderson scored 15 of SPU's next 18 points.

He hit two free throws with 11:40 left, then put his team ahead 53-52 on a jumper with 9:17 remaining. He then extended SPU's lead to four at 56-52 on a trey with 8:17 remaining.

Guard McKay Massey scored the next five points, regaining the lead for Dixie State on a three-pointer with 5:58 left.

Anderson, however, then put SPU back on top 58-57 with two free throws. Griffon Jones gave Dixie's its last lead 59-58 on a layup with 4:54 remaining.

Jobi Wall then gave SPU the lead for good with a three-pointer (61-59) with 4:38. Anderson scored the next six points including a trey with 1:22 left to stretch the Falcons lead to eight at 57-49.

Dixie got a jumper from Landon Clegg and a three-pointer by Massey to pull within three in the final minute.

The Red Storm got the ball back and Maurice Cole hit one of two foul shots to cut his team's deficit to two.

After a free throw by Downs re-established a three-point lead, Dixie missed two three-points shots. Poling got a rebound with 5.9 seconds and hit two free throws left to clinch the win.

A three-pointer by Cole at the buzzer established the final two-point margin.

Anderson ended up converting on seven of nine shots, including four of six pointers and also tied Poling, who made seven of nine shots, for game-high rebounding honors with eight.

Dixie, which fell behind early 20-2 before rallying to go ahead 40-39 at halftime, got 14 points from Massey and also had 10 fewer turnovers (20-10)

However, the Red Storm, was outrebounded 38-25 and was outscored 30-18 from the three-point lead as SPU converted on 10 of 25 compared to six of 17 by Dixie.

Western Washington 79, Grand Canyon 73

Guard John Allen scored 15 of his game-high 24 points in the first half as Western Washington built a 25-point lead, but the Vikings had to hold off a furious comeback from Grand Canyon in the second half before earning the victory.

Western Washington jumped to a 14-1 lead in the first 3:44 of the game. After Rory Blanche hit a jumper to start the game, Allen scored WWU's next seven points.

Grand Canyon finally got on the board with a free throw, but Blanche hit a jumper and Chris Mitchell nailed a three to stretch the lead to 13 points. Later in the half, the Vikings had runs of 7-0 to ahead 25-9 and 6-0 to stretch their lead to 31-11.

The Vikings eventually went on top by 25 at 42-17 with four minutes left in the first half and were up by 21 at halftime (48-27).