Saturday, March 9, 2019

BELLINGHAM, Wash. – Behind a double-double from senior Coleman Wooten and a second half surge against an opponent playing its third game in three nights, No. 2 seed Seattle Pacific came out on the winning end of a competitive GNAC Men's Basketball Championships title game.

Wooten exploded for 25 points and 11 rebounds to lead the Falcons to the 78-66 victory over Western Oregon that gave the team the GNAC's automatic berth in the NCAA Division II Championships. 

After each team recorded a home victory in the regular-season series, SPU earned ultimate bragging rights with the championship game rubber match. The win extended its winning streak to 12 games heading into NCAA West Regional play next week.

It moved to 21-6 on the season while Western Oregon fell to 22-10.

Wooten and guard Gavin Long (17 points) led Seattle Pacific in the win. Wooten's effort earned the forward the tournament's MVP award. Long shot 6 for 10 from the field while burying two of the three attempts he dialed in from long distance.

Western Oregon sophomore Darius Lubom led his team with 14 points on the night. As a team, the tournament's No. 4 seed shot 44.4 percent from the field. The club finished the contest shooting at a 36.8 percent clip from three-point range.

The first half featured a back-and-forth affair as both teams came out of the gates firing. The lead exchanged hands four times in the first 20 minutes in addition to being tied on five separate occasions.

Ultimately it was the Falcons who took a 41-38 advantage into the locker rooms, the three-point advantage protected by a monster block at the rim from Long as time expired.

The team used some of that momentum to the tune of a quick start to the second half. A triple from Long seven minutes into the second stanza put his club up double digits, and that lead would grow to as high as 14 at a couple of different points throughout the half.

A Lubom layup pulled the Wolves to within 60-58 with 9:46 to play, but a mini 6-2 burst stretched the margin right back out.

The final was 78-66, handing SPU its fourth GNAC Championships title in program history. The Falcons had previously won it in a three-year span stretching from 2013-2015.

The team will look to stay hot when it returns to action next week at the Division II Championships. It will learn its first-round opponent on Sunday night's Selection Show.