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LACEY, Wash. – Now, all the Seattle Pacific Falcons can do is wait – for four more days.
 
Suzanna Ohlsen tied her career high with 25 points on Wednesday night, but Simon Fraser went a perfect 16 of 16 at the free throw line in the last 7 ½ minute of the game to beat Seattle Pacific in the first round of the Great Northwest Athletic Conference women's basketball tournament at Saint Martin's University, 87-79.
 
The Falcons (18-9) now will have to hang tight until Sunday evening at 7:00 Pacific time to find out if they make the NCAA West Regional tournament. SPU was No. 6 in the latest set of regional rankings that were released on Wednesday. The three conference tournament champions – GNAC, California Collegiate Athletic Association, and Pacific West – all qualify automatically. After that, the five highest-ranked teams among the non-champions fill out the field.
 
Coach Julie Heisey still believes the wait will be worth it.
 
"I told our kids we have a heck of a chance," she said. "We're going to be practicing on Friday. We have to prepare like we're going to keep playing."
 
Senior forward Katie Benson (Snohomish, Wash. / Snohomish HS) added 17 points and eight rebounds for the Falcons, playing for most of the final 10 ½ minutes with four fouls before picking up her fifth in the final seconds. Freshman forward / guard Hannah Rodrigues (Eugene, Ore.) and junior guard Betsy Kingma (Bellevue, Wash. / Newport HS) chipped in 11 points apiece.
 
Simon Fraser (18-8) was led by the career-high 24 points of Marie-Line Petit – double what she totaled in the two regular-season games against SPU.
 
The lead changed hands 12 times, but Seattle Pacific was still down by just three at 62-59 with 7:26 left in the game. The Clan went on a 10-2 run to open its first double-digit advantage at 72-61 with 4:54 to go. SPU cut it to three on a driving lay-in by Ohlsen at the 1:58 mark before Simon Fraser pushed it back out to eight at 79-71 with just 1:06 remaining.
               
"There were several times when we would bring it down to three or five, but we never put them away," Ohlsen said. "They were shooting way higher than they should have. They were making tough shots, and were making free throws at a higher percentage than they should have.
 
"It was just one of those things where we just got unlucky," Ohlsen added. "We were doing a lot of things right, but if we slipped up one time, it bit us in the butt every single time. There was no room for mistakes today."
 
The Clan went to the foul line 35 times on Wednesday, hitting 29 of them (82.9 percent, 11 points higher than their season mark of 71.6). That included 21 of 22 in the second half. SPU was 18 of 25 at the line, 11 of 16 in the second half. From the field, Simon Fraser drained 25 of 54 (46.3), with 8 of 22 from downtown. SPU was 29 of 67 (43.3) and just 3 of 10 behind the arc.
 
This was the third time this season Simon Fraser beat SPU. The Clan won both regular-season games, 63-60 and 77-68. It's als the third straight year they've knocked the Falcons out of the GNAC tourney.
 
For a good chunk of the second half, Seattle Pacific was playing with four of its starters in foul trouble: Benson, Kingma, and Rodrigues (four apiece), and Ohlsen (three). Kingma had three at halftime, Benson and Rodrigues two each. Heisey said that had an effect at the outset of the second half.
 
"The first half, we played really great defense. I really felt like we took them out of their rhythm, holding them to 39 percent (field goal shooting), which was good," Heisey said. "The second half, we had so many kids with three fouls, we came out and played soft defensively because we were worried about fouling. Even though we were scoring, we were exchanging baskets, and that hurt us.
 
"When we tightened up our defense, we started rebounding better, But we could never get over the hump."
 
Ohlsen's 25-point outing was her second straight on the Marcus Pavilion court. The first was on Feb. 20 when the Falcons beat Saint Martin's, 54-44.
 
A back-and-forth first half ended with Simon Fraser on top, 38-33. SPU twice led by as many as four points, the last time at 29-25 with 4:16 left before the break. But the Clan ran off eight straight points during the next three minutes to go in front, 33-29.
 
Simon Fraser picked up nearly a third of its opening-half points on second-chance opportunities. That was thanks in part to 13 offensive rebounds, part of a 25-14 dominance of the boards in the first 20 minutes. It wound up 39-35 in the Clan's favor for the game.
 
 
NCAA WOMEN'S BASKETBALL
GNAC Tournament -- Quarterfinal
Wednesday, March 5, 2014
Marcus Pavilion / Lacey, Wash.
               
Simon Fraser 87, Seattle Pacific 79
 
SEATTLE PACIFIC (18-9)
Rodrigues 4-7 3-5 11, Benson 7-18 3-4 17, Pflaumer 1-3 4-4 6, Ohlsen 10-19 5-5 25, Kingma 4-9 0-1 11, Barnes 2-3 1-2 5, Shim 0-3 2-2 2, Butler 1-2 0-1 2, Grager 0-0 0-1 0, Lukasiewicz 0-3 0-0 0. Totals 29-67 18-25 79.
 
SIMON FRASER (18-8)
Chambers 2-6 12-13 16, Reist 4-7 2-2 10, Langmead 2-5 2-2 6, Van Laare 3-11 0-0 9, Petit 7-12 7-8 24, Lowen 4-7 2-2 11, Wilson 3-6 3-6 10, Kett 0-0 1-2 1, Sider 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 25-54 29-35 87.
 
Seattle Pacific.............  33   46   -  79
Simon Fraser..............  38   49   -  87
 
3-point goals--SPU 3-10 (Kingma 3-5, Benson 0-1, Rodrigues 0-1, Ohlsen 0-3), SF 8-22 (Van Laare 3-9, Petit 3-7, Wilson 1-1, Lowen 1-3, Chambers 0-2). Fouled out--SPU-Benson, Rodrigues, SF-None. Rebounds--SPU 35 (Benson 8), SF 39 (Wilson 13). Assists--SPU 8 (Lukasiewicz, Benson 2), SF 14 (Petit 4). Total fouls--SPU 27, SF 22. Technical fouls--SPU-None, SF-None. A-316.