February 7, 2009
ANCHORAGE, Ak. – Jeremiah Trueman and Kenny Barker combined for 39 points Saturday, leading Alaska Anchorage to a 66-62 home win over Seattle Pacific in a Great Northwest Athletic Conference men's basketball game at the Wells Fargo Sports Complex.
The Falcons' record dropped to 13-7 with a 6-3 conference ledger. SPU, which won 96-87 at Alaska Fairbanks on Thursday, came up short in a bid for its first sweep of the Alaska road trip since 2002.
Anchorage improved to 5-4 in GNAC play, evening its overall record at 11-11.
SPU parlayed an 11-2 run into its largest lead of the game at 50-44 with 8:33 left to play.
Included in that surge was a rare seven-point possession by the Falcons.
With UAA ahead 43-42 and holding the ball, Steve White was stripped by SPU's
Chris Banchero (Seattle, Wash./O'Dea HS), who drove in for a layup and was fouled hard by Kyle Doerr.
The Falcons were awarded an “excessive contact” foul on the play, enabling Banchero to sink two free throws. SPU then retained possession and got a three-pointer from
Jeff Downs (Kirkland, Wash./Bellevue Christian HS) to turn a one-point deficit into a 48-42 lead with 9:27 left.
UAA steadily chipped away at that deficit and tied the score 52-52 on two free throws by Barker with 4:51 remaining. Lonnie Ridgeway followed with two more charity shots at 4:20, putting Anchorage in front for good.
The Seawolves clung to a 58-55 lead when SPU's
Rob Diederichs (Shoreline, Wash./Shorewood HS) missed a pair of free throws with 1:35 left in the game. Ridgeway followed with a dunk, pushing the differential to five points.
Rafael Moreira (Brasilia, Brazil) made two free throws with 15 seconds remaining to draw SPU within 63-61, but Barker answered one second later with two of his own for the Seawolves.
Adam Wardell (Sedro Woolley, Wash./Sedro Woolley HS) hit a free throw for SPU at 0:08 and UAA's Trueman made one at 0:06 to cap the scoring.
Alaska players converted 6-of-8 free throws during the final 31 seconds to secure the victory. They shot 19-of-21 from the line for the game.
Moreira scored 16 points to lead SPU, which also got 11 from Banchero and 10 apiece from Wardell and
Brandon Larrieu (Puyallup, Wash./Franklin Pierce).
Trueman finished with 20 points, including 6-of-7 from the free throw line, and Barker had 19 for the Seawolves. Barker sank all six of his free throw attempts.
The Falcons were held 10 percent below their conference-leading field goal percentage. They shot 42.1 percent from the field (22-of-52), just their fifth time in 20 games under the 50-percent mark.
SPU was limited to 37-percent second-half shooting (10-of-27), while the Seawolves shot 50 percent (9-of-18) in that same span.
The Falcons held two brief first-half leads, at 2-0 on a Diederichs' layup and 21-20 on a Wardell jumper at 5:29.
The Seawolves staked their biggest first-half lead, 15-10, on a pair of Barker free throws 12:33 before halftime.
SPU's
Casey Reed (Canby, Ore.) netted the final basket of the first half, a layup with 38 seconds remaining that drew the Falcons within 30-28. Larrieu opened the second half with a layup at 19:22 that tied the score 30-30.
UAA responded with an 8-2 run to claim its largest lead of the game, at 38-32 with 16:23 left to play.
The SPU men return home to Brougham Pavilion, Thursday, Feb. 12 to host Western Oregon at 7:30 p.m. That is the nightcap of a doubleheader with the Falcons women, who play Western Oregon at 5:15 p.m.
