Thursday, January 8, 2015
PORTLAND, Ore. – The second of five GNAC women’s basketball games shown on ROOT SPORTS will air Thursday at 9 p.m. Mountain Time as Simon Fraser travels to Northwest Nazarene. Thursday’s game will start at 6 p.m. Mountain but will be aired on a tape delay at 9 p.m. MT.
Both SFU and NNU are coming off loses after big wins on Thursday last week.
Simon Fraser narrowly edged Montana State Billings 74-73 in a thriller that took a Sam Beauchamp layup with two seconds left to win it. The Clan lost to Seattle Pacific at home Saturday by five.
Northwest Nazarene might have pulled the biggest upset in the GNAC this year, handling previously No. 3 Alaska Anchorage 79-64 in Alaska. The Crusaders closed out the first half on a 16-7 run and created 34 turnovers in the win. NNU couldn’t keep the momentum going Saturday as it lost to Alaska 82-76.
Simon Fraser has one of the top offenses in the conference while also having its leading scorer (Erin Chambers), second assists leader (Ellen Kett) and third leading rebounder (Meg Wilson).
The Crusaders have an almost equally as good offense, averaging 0.1 points per game less than the Clan. NNU has one of the top players in the GNAC in Taylor Simmons as well who ranks in the top 10 in the conference in scoring, assists and steals.
With the Clans loss Saturday and NNU’s defeat of UAA Thursday, the last two undefeated teams in the GNAC were beaten.
The Seawolves and the Falcons do only have one loss on the season however. They are the top two teams in the D2SIDA West Region and are both in the top 15 in the USA TODAY Coaches Poll.
Alaska joins the above mentioned as the only teams with double-digit wins in the conference so far. The Nanooks had two strong victories last week against then 7-3 Central Washington and NNU who beat UAA a few days before.
Notes:
- The GNAC is the highest scoring conference in the nation at 72.87 points each contest. Seven of the conference’s teams score at least 72 points a game led by UAA’s 84.9.
- Western Washington’s Katie Colard became the fourth GNAC player this season to reach the 1,000 point milestone. She becomes the 23rd Viking to reach 1,000 points and, with 1,027, she current sits 56th on the all-time points list. Colard also tied the school record with 27 straight free throws made dating back to last season.
- The Crusaders beat Alaska Anchorage in Alaska for the first time in 11 seasons. The 64 points the Crusaders allowed was the lowest scoring output by the Seawolves this season.
- With eight free throws made in Saturday’s loss, Dana Goularte of Western Oregon recorded No. 300 in her career which also propelled her into the top 25 all-time in free throws made in the GNAC.
- REMINDER: Thursday’s Simon Fraser at Northwest Nazarene game on ROOT SPORTS will be aired on a tape delay. The game will be played at 6 p.m. Mountain time, but will be aired at 9 p.m. on ROOT SPORTS.
- Suzanna Ohlsen of SPU was selected as GNAC Player of the Week after scoring 43 points and adding eight assists and nine steals in road wins over Western Washington and Simon Fraser.