Saturday, March 3, 2012
Tournament MVP Haley Holmstead scored 19 points to lead eighth-ranked Alaska Anchorage to a 67-52 victory over Western Washington in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference Women's Basketball Championship title game Saturday at Marcus Pavilion.
The top-seeded Seawolves (27-4), who have won eight straight, also got 12 points and eight rebounds from reserve forward Tijera Mathews to repeat as champions and win the rematch of last year's inaugural conference tourney.
The Vikings (21-7) suffered their third loss to UAA this year despite a game-high 21 points and 12 rebounds from forward Britt Harris. The loss snapped a six-game win streak for WWU, which was seeded second in the tournament.
Holmstead made nine of 14 shots and finished the tournament with 41 points in earning MVP honors.
The Seawolves led by just three points (48-45) after a jumper by Katie Colard with 5:51 to play.
But UAA, which also got 10 points from GNAC Player-of-the-Year Hanna Johansson, then went on an 11-2 run in a little over two minutes to go up 59-47 with 3:17 remaining and was never seriously threatened after that.
Johansson started the game-clinching run with a three-point play on an aggressive drive through the lane, and Kaylie Robison scored back-to-back layups to extend to a 57-47 lead with 3:34 on the clock. WWU would not get within single digits again.
“Tijera Mathews was great, especially in the first half,” UAA coach Tim Moser said. “She really made a difference with her energy and rebounding, in addition to her scoring.
"But I also can't say enough about the job Kaylie and Alysa Horn did in the second half, and we just found a way to win."
Horn had eight points, all after intermission.
Anchorage shot 52.3 percent (23-of-44) from the field to just 27.7 percent (18-of-65) for the Vikings. UAA also outrebounded the Vikings 39-34 as Matthews and Robison had eight each.
“That was a battle,” said Moser, who is now 5-0 in GNAC tournament games.
“I told our kids it was going to be a battle. I don't think we were always in synch, but we found a way to win. We haven't had a lot of these tests, so this was good for us tonight.
“When I look at the stat sheet, it's surprising we won,” Moser added. “You don't win very often when your opponent takes 21 more shots and you turn the ball over 21 times, but we'll take it.
"Western Washington had a lot to do with getting us out of our game for large stretches, and they'll be a formidable opponent for whoever they face in the (NCAA) first round next week.”
While UAA earns the GNAC's automatic berth, Western Washington is assured of an at-large berth because of its No. 4 ranking in Wednesday's regional poll.
First-round pairings for the tournament which begins next Friday will be announced Sunday at 7 p.m. in a web cast at NCAA.com.
“It's disappointing that we didn't come out on top and I think we shot the ball very poorly which hurt us, but we battled and didn't back down,” said WWU coach Carmen Dolfo . “We had a stretch there where we played poor defense but other than that we played really well.”
Harris was 9-of-15 from the field, but the rest of the Vikings were just a combined 9-of-50.
“I was just really proud of (Britt), she wanted the ball offensively, she boarded hard and she had a great tournament,” said Dolfo. “We need to put this behind us and learn from this game. We get to keep playing and that's the thing we need to focus on.”