Friday, March 10, 2017

LA JOLLA, Calif. – Western Washington’s impressive season came to a stunning end Friday afternoon as the No. 3 seeded Vikings fell to No. 6 seed Chico State, 96-83, in the quarterfinals of the NCAA Division II West Regional Men’s Basketball Tournament at RIMAC Arena.

The Wildcats broke open a close half with an 11-1 to end the first half, a run from which the Vikings did not recover from. Western Washington managed to shoot 47.1 percent from the field in the second half and 44 percent for the game, but found themselves matched point for point as the Vikings never came closer than nine points the rest of the way.

Senior Taylor Stafford led Western Washington with 24 points, connecting on 7 of 17 from the field and 10 of 14 from the free throw line. Jeffrey Parker finished with 16 points and in the process moved past Western Oregon’s Andy Avgi into No. 7 on the GNAC all-time scoring list, finishing his career with 1,867 points. Deandre Dickson came off the bench to score 16 points and Logan Schilder added 10.

Isaiah Ellis led five Chico State players in double figures with 20 points. Jalen McFerren scored 16, Marvin Timothy added 12 and Michael Bethea, Jr., and Nate Ambrosini each scored 11.

Western Washington finishes their season at 25-6 overall. Chico State improved to 24-7 overall and will face No. 2 seed Hawaii Pacific, which defeated Sonoma State in the second quarterfinal of the day.

The final score doesn’t indicate how the first half was as neither team led by more than six points over the first 15 minutes. Western Washington opened up its biggest lead of the period, 15-11, on a pair of Daulton Hommes free throws less than five minutes in. Chico State eventually tied the game at 19-19 on a three-point play by Bethea only to watch Brett Kingma and Stafford make back-to-back three-pointers to put the Vikings ahead 25-19 at the 9:23 mark.

Chico State kept chipping away and took a 33-32 lead when Timothy’s dunk with 4:53 left in the first half. The Vikings came back within one of a Stafford free throw with 3:35 left, but the Wildcats proceeded to outscore Western Washington 11-1 over the final three minutes of the half and went into the break with a 47-36 lead.

The Chico State surge continued in the second half with the Wildcats extending their lead to 15 when nate Ambrosini’s three-pointer made it a 56-41 game less than five minutes into the period. Chico State would make it a 16-point advantage with 11:40 to go when before back-to-back buckets by Parker closed the Vikings to within 11 and a pair of Schilder free throws with 7:40 go made it a 72-63 game. The Vikings never stole the momentum, though, as Chico State would extend the lead back to 15 points with under two minutes left.