NAMPA, Idaho – Year after year, games have gone down to the wire when the Seattle Pacific women's basketball teams visits Northwest Nazarene.
On Saturday, they got to enjoy a rare double-digit decision.
Nyesha Sims scored 14 points, one of five Falcons in double figures, and 22nd-ranked SPU went on a 10-0 second half run to move in front for good, then later put together another 10-point surge on the way to downing the Crusaders, 70-57.
Seattle Pacific (11-3, 5-1 Great Northwest Athletic Conference) thus completed a sweep of its two-game road trip that started with Thursday's 77-52 rout at Central Washington.
This was the six time SPU head coach Julie Heisey has taken her team to the Johnson Sports Center since she took the helm in 2005. The Falcons won four of the first five where Heisey played her college ball, but all by narrow margins – five, one, four and two points. Last year, it took a Daesha Henderson buzzer-beater to cap a 7-0 run that ended in SPU's favor, 63-61.
“NNU is a very, very good team, and it's always hard to play there,” Heisey said. “It was a really good win for us. In the first half, we went over five minutes without scoring. So for us to continue to play defense and rebound when we had no offense, that spoke well for the character of our team.”
Junior guard Sims (Portland, Ore.) pumped in nine of her 14 points during the second half. The last of those was a putback when she rebounded a missed Melissa Reich free throw and went back up for the lay-in and a 64-54 lead with 3:30 left in the game.
Senior center Reich (Bothell, Wash./Bellevue Christian HS), senior guard Maddie Maloney (Issaquah, Wash./Skyline HS) and redshirt freshman forward Katie Benson (Snohomish, Wash./Snohomish HS) added 11 points apiece. Senior forward Caitlyn Rohrbach (Edmonds, Wash./Meadowdale HS) chipped in 10 points.
That was the first time this season Seattle Pacific has had five players score in double figures.
Beth Johnson led Northwest Nazarene (9-7, 4-4 GNAC) with 16 points. SPU's defense kept the Crusaders 14 points below their 71.1 average.
The Falcons were down 43-40 with 12:30 left in the game, then ran off the next 10 straight. Sims hit a pair of free throws, and Maloney followed with a 3-pointer from the left corner, putting Seattle Pacific permanently in front, 45-43. Rohrbach hit a lay-in off a feed from Reich, and Benson, who just moments earlier had picked up her fourth foul, capped it by delivering a rainbow 3-pointer with 9:36 left to make it 50-43.
“She had just gotten her fourth foul and then hit the 3, and I said I was just going to leave her in,” Heisey said. “I said, 'We need offense right now. I'm not going to mess with this.' ”
Northwest Nazarene got as close as four at 58-54 with 4:20 to go. That's when the Falcons ran up 10 more consecutive points to clinch it.
During the first half, it was SPU which went through a scoring drought. The Falcons were kept off the board for 6 minutes, 5 seconds, and their 19-14 vanished as Northwest Nazarene ran off nine straight points before Maloney hit an eight-foot runner from the right corner with 3:14 left until halftime.
The Falcons shot 53.8 percent during the second half (14 of 26) and wound up at 46.3 percent for the game (25 of 54). That included a 43.8 percent mark from behind the 3-point arc (7 of 16). Their defense limited NNU to just 31.7 percent for the game (19 of 60), including just 3 of 16 from downtown.
Seattle Pacific had another strong day on the boards, with a 44-33 advantage. Sims and Rohrbach had seven.
“In the first half, we did a good job (rebounding), and that's what kept us in the game,” Heisey said. “They (the Crusaders) didn't get a whole lot of second chances.”
SPU returns home to face Saint Martin's on Thursday at 5:15 p.m. in Brougham Pavilion, the opener of a women's-men's doubleheader. The Falcon men take on Simon Fraser at 7:30.
NCAA WOMEN'S BASKETBALL
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Johnson Sports Center/Nampa, Idaho
(No. 22) Seattle Pacific 70, Northwest Nazarene 57
SEATTLE PACIFIC (11-3, 5-1 GNAC)
Sims 5-8 3-4 14; Benson 4-8 1-2 11; Reich 4-10 3-5 11; Maloney 2-7 6-8 11; Rohrbach 5-10 0-0 10; Harazin 2-5 0-0 6; Gorman 2-4 0-0 5; Callen 1-2 0-0 2; Murray 0-0 0-0 0; Teng 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 25-54 13-19 70.
NORTHWEST NAZARENE (9-7, 4-4 GNAC)
Johnson 7-10 1-1 16; Garcia 3-9 5-5 11; King 2-5 5-5 9; Hingston 2-9 2-2 6; Luke 2-8 0-0 5; Warwick 1-1 1-2 3; Adams 1-6 0-1 3; Dzhidzhiyeshvili 1-8 0-0 2; Smith 0-3 2-2 2; Ramirez 0-0 0-0 0; Schulte to Buhne 0-1 0-0 0. Totals 19-60 16-18 57.
Seattle Pacific....................... 25 45 - 70
Northwest Nazarene............ 27 30 - 57
3-point goals--Seattle Pacific 7-16 (Benson 2-3; Harazin 2-3; Sims 1-1; Maloney 1-3; Gorman 1-2; Callen 0-1; Rohrbach 0-3), Northwest Nazarene 3-16 (Luke 1-4; Adams 1-5; Johnson 1-1; Dzhidzhiyeshvili 0-1; Smith 0-1; Garcia 0-4). Fouled out--Seattle Pacific-None, Northwest Nazarene-None. Rebounds--Seattle Pacific 44 (Sims 7; Rohrbach 7), Northwest Nazarene 33 (Hingston 8). Assists--Seattle Pacific 1 (Harazin 4), Northwest Nazarene 9 (Smith 5). Total fouls--Seattle Pacific 17, Northwest Nazarene 19. Technical fouls--Seattle Pacific-None, Northwest Nazarene-None. A-402.
