Saturday, March 8, 2014

LACEY, Wash. – Tournament MVP David Downs scored 26 points to lead top-seed Seattle Pacific to a 65-62 win over Western Washington in the final game of the Great Northwest Athletic Conference Men’s Basketball Championships Saturday at Marcus Pavilion on the campus of Saint Martin’s University.

The Falcons, who are ranked 18th nationally, secured their second consecutive GNAC title and their fifth overall with the victory.  The win also earned SPU an automatic berth in next week’s NCAA Division II West Regionals. The regional starts Friday at a site to be announced.

Downs, who was also the tourney MVP last year, had 19 of his points in the second half, including 10 straight during a critical four-minute period.

Seattle Pacific trailed by eight points on four different occasions during the game including 40-32 with 15:57 remaining. 

The Falcons were still down by five (43-38) with 14:23 left following a trey by Austin Bragg.  But, Downs then nailed back-to-back three-pointers to put his team up (44-43) for the first the first time since the opening minutes of the contest.

Downs then added two free throws at 12:47 and a layup at 10:29 to complete the 10-point run.  A few moments later SPU had another all-Downs 7-0 run which started with two foul shots and included a two-point basket, then ended with his fourth trey of the contest.

That gave SPU 57-48 lead with 6:46 left.

Western Washington, the two-time defending regional champion, wasn’t done though as the Vikings climbed to within three on a three-point play by freshman Joey Schreiber with 2:17 remaining, then cut their deficit to one on a jumper by Bragg with 1:14 left.

WWU had three opportunities to take the lead on its next possession, but Bragg, Colby Mitchell and Richard Woodworth all missed shots before Matt Borton finally got the rebound with just seconds remaining for the Falcons.

Borton then hit two foul shots with 3.7 seconds left to give his team a three-point lead.  WWU inbounded but turned the ball over never getting a shot at a potential game tying three-pointer.

“We played an outstanding game and it came down to the last possession,” said WWU coach Tony Dominguez. “We had three good shots, and we missed them. Normally we make those and we’d be celebrating.”

Downs finished the contest making 8-of-16 shots, including 4-of-6 from the arc.  He was also perfect from the foul line (6-of-6) and had six rebounds.

Patrick Simon had 11 points, but the nation’s leading three-point shooter was only 1-of-9 from the arc.  Cory Hutsen had eight points and seven rebounds.  Borton led SPU in rebounds (8) and assists (4).

Bragg paced the Vikings with 20 points and tied Woodworth for rebounding honors with eight.  Freshman Jeffrey Parker had 14 points and Robert Harris had 11. 

Woodworth. who came into the tournament averaging 17 ½ points but was injured early in the second half of Thursday’s win against Alaska Fairbanks, was limited to seven points.

SPU improved to 26-5 and will participate in the NCAA regional for the 10^th consecutive year.  That is the longest current streak in NCAA Division II.

Western Washington (20-8) was ranked seventh in this week’s regional poll and will have to wait until Sunday to see if they are awarded one of the five at-large berths.

The qualifiers and the site for the tournament will be announced Sunday night at 7:30 p.m. on a webcast on ncaa.com.