• Boxscore & Play-by-Play

BELLINGHAM, Wash. – Seattle Pacific's balanced scoring attack spoiled the stellar Senior Night effort of Western Washington forward Michael Duty.

Jeff Downs led four double-figure scorers with 20 points Tuesday, helping the SPU men defeat the Vikings for the 12th time in their last 13 meetings with an 84-70 basketball victory at Carver Gymnasium.

The Falcons (17-8) improved to 11-6 in Great Northwest Athletic Conference play, moving into a third-place tie with WWU (16-9). They completed a sweep of the regular-season series against the Vikings.

The Seattle Pacific men clinched a top-four position in the conference standings and will host a first-round game in the inaugural GNAC Tournament on Monday, Feb. 28. They will play the 7:30 p.m. nightcap of a Brougham Pavilion doubleheader with the Falcons women who will host a 5:15 p.m. tournament opener. The opponent for both games will not be determined until later this week.

SPU can secure at least a tie for third place in the men's standings with a win on Thursday at Simon Fraser and could finish as high as second with a loss by Alaska Anchorage and a WWU win in their final regular-season outings.

“For our team, once circumstances kind of changed for us with injuries and everything, it's been a big deal to finish in the top three,” said Coach Ryan Looney, whose Falcons lost returning starters Chris Banchero and Jake Anderson to knee injuries in January.

“We think if we are in the top three at the end of the regular season we have a chance to put ourselves in the regional again. If you can get in the regional then it's anybody's game at that point.”

Ryan Sweet tallied 19 points for the Falcons, who also got 18 from Andy Poling and 11 from David Downs. They offset the 32-point performance of Duty, a product of Seattle's O'Dea High School who is Western's lone senior.

Duty gave the Vikings their final lead at 29-27 on a jump shot just eight seconds into the second half. Jeff Downs answered with a 3-pointer and layup to ignite a 15-2 run that put SPU ahead 42-31 with 14:41 left to play. The Vikings scored the next eight points, including back-to-back 3-pointers by Derek Dickerson, to trim the deficit to 42-39 with 13:46 remaining.

The Falcons turned back the rally with a 9-3 surge and never led by less than five points the rest of the way. They converted 17 of 22 free throws inside the final five minutes to secure the win.

Rory Blanche contributed 11 points for WWU and John Allen added 10.

SPU shot 53 percent from the field (26 of 49) while holding the Vikings to 41 percent (23 of 56) accuracy.

Poling (Portland Ore.) grabbed a game-high 12 rebounds to record his sixth double-double and fuel SPU's 37-22 advantage on the boards.

The Falcons stopped a three-game losing streak, getting their first win since an 87-74 home decision on Feb. 5. Since then, they lost road games at Central Washington (63-53), Northwest Nazarene (81-70) and Montana State Billings (68-56).

“We found a way to get back on track. In those three games we lost we didn't have very much toughness,” Looney explained. “Tonight we scored 44 points in the paint, got to the free throw line 34 times, outrebounded them by 15 and took four charges on defense.”

Duty had just eight points on 3 of 12 shooting in the first meeting, a 69-61 SPU win on Jan. 26 in Seattle. He was honored with a ceremony prior to Tuesday's game, his final regular-season home appearance.

The pre-game festivities clearly inspired Duty, who pumped in Western's first 11 points, including the opening six of the game for either team.

“He was hitting tough shots. Duty was putting the ball on the floor and attacking our bigger players from the perimeter and then he hit some jumpers too,” Looney described.

“We were talking about it in timeouts, about him being the one guy that was really hurting us. At the end of the day, I felt good about it because they were hurting us in basically just one way and we had the lead nearly the whole time.”

The Falcons responded to Duty's game-opening heroics with nine unanswered points to start a 15-2 run.

SPU led 24-19 before the Vikings closed the half with an 8-3 run. Dickerson's 3-pointer with one second on the clock drew WWU even at 27-27 by halftime.

The Falcons close out their regular-season schedule on Thursday at Simon Fraser. The game between SPU and the newest GNAC member tips off at 7 p.m. in Burnaby, B.C.

“Even though Western was a big game, the game at Simon Fraser is just as big,” Looney said. “To keep ourselves where we need to be we've got to take care of that one too.”


NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Carver Gymnasium/Bellingham, Wash.

SEATTLE PACIFIC 84, WESTERN WASHINGTON 70

SEATTLE PACIFIC (17-8,11-6)
J. Downs 6-11 4-4 20, Sweet 7-14 4-4 19, Poling 8-15 2-2 18, D. Downs 1-4 9-14 11, Niang 4-4 1-2 9, Morse 0-0 7-8 7, Hope 0-0 0-0 0, Moll 0-0 0-0 0, Dorman 0-1 0-0 0, Carel 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 26-49 27-34 84.

WESTERN WASHINGTON (16-9,11-6)
Duty 9-18 12-15 32, Dickerson 4-7 0-0 12, Blanche 4-9 3-4 11, Allen 5-6 0-1 10, Wiederkehr 1-1 1-2 3, Nelson 0-1 2-2 2, Mitchell 0-5 0-0 0, Young 0-0 0-0 0, Henifin 0-8 0-0 0, McPhee 0-1 0-0 0, Thorpe 0-0 0-0 0, Grosz 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 23-56 18-24 70.

Halftime – SPU 27, WWU 27.

3-point goals--SPU 5-13 (J. Downs 4-7, Sweet 1-3, D. Downs 0-2, Dorman 0-1), WWU 6-24 (Dickerson 4-7, Duty 2-7, Nelson 0-1, Mitchell 0-4, Henifin 0-4, McPhee 0-1). Fouled out--SPU-None, WWU-Henifin, Duty. Rebounds--SPU 37 (Poling 12), WWU 22 (Blanche 7). Assists--SPU 14 (D. Downs 7), WWU 10 (Allen 4). Total fouls--SPU 18, WWU 27. Technical fouls--SPU-None, WWU-None. A-1012.