Box Score    |    Final Stats

SEATTLE – Taylor Stafford scored 15 of his game-high 28 points during the final 2:35 of regulation and the extra session Saturday, leading 18th-ranked Western Washington to a 96-91 overtime win over Seattle Pacific in a Great Northwest Athletic Conference men's basketball clash at Brougham Pavilion.
 
The entertaining encounter between the Northwest rivals featured 10 ties and a remarkable total of 18 lead changes. Neither team led by more than eight points during the frenetic 45-minute contest.
 
The Falcons (4-4) saw their league record evened at 1-1. They opened conference play at home on Thursday with an 88-66 win over Simon Fraser.
 
Western (7-0) remained undefeated and improved to 2-0 in GNAC games.
 
The Vikings trailed 72-69 before Stafford notched their next 11 points, including a 3-pointer with 14.3 seconds left in the second half that put them ahead 80-76.
 
"Stafford made some really big shots late and some really tough, contested, back-breaking threes," first-year Falcons coach Grant Leep said. "For them to have a guy in that moment to go make those plays, that's a credit to them and how they play. I hope he feels that we made him really work for what he got."

 

SPU's Will Parker nailed a deep trey with 7.1 on the clock and Western's Brad Wallace made one of two free throws with 4.7 left and his team leading 81-79.
 
Coleman Wooten raced down the court on the dribble for the Falcons and was fouled heading toward the lane. He converted both free throws with 0.4 seconds showing to force overtime.
 
WWU got the first five points of overtime and never trailed after that. The Falcons rallied to twice tie the game, the last time on two Parker free throws with 1:07 left.
 
Stafford sank two free throws with 48.2 seconds on the clock to ignite a run of seven straight Vikings points. By the time he concluded the spree with another pair of charity shots, the visitors owned a 95-88 cushion with 12.1 seconds remaining.
 
Olivier-Paul Betu hit a 3-pointer for SPU with 6.5 seconds left and Western's Wallace set the final score by sinking the first of two free throws with 5.4 on the clock.
 
Betu amassed a career-best 26 points on 9-of-11 shooting and distributed seven assists. He doubled the previous high of 13 points he posted on Nov. 12 versus Hawaii-Hilo.
 
"O.P. missed only two shots on the night. He was ultra competitive," Leep exclaimed. "He's been getting into the lane all season, but tonight he made better decisions when in there. We needed him to make shots when he gets inside and he did that tonight."

 

Joe Rasmussen equaled his career-high point total with 25 for SPU, nearly half of them coming on four 3-pointers. SPU got 13 points from Parker, 11 from Tony Miller and 10 from Wooten.
 
Along with his 28 points, Stafford contributed nine rebounds and eight assists. He made 10 of 21 shots and all five of his free throws.
 
Daulton Hommes added 24 points for the Vikings while Logan Schilder and Trey Drechsel each had 11 and Trevor Jasinsky 10.
 
Injury-plagued SPU suited up just nine players and seven of them saw nearly all of the time with an eighth going in for less than 30 seconds.
 
While disappointed in the setback, Leep was pleased with the effort his under-manned team displayed.
 
"We've talked a lot about building our identity and who we are. We've chosen 'commitment, communication and competition' as the three things that we want to define who we are both on and off the court. I thought our guys lived that out tonight with how they played.
 
"They played extremely hard and made no excuses. Our guys battled and they didn't stop. They kept persevering and they showed so much grit and toughness and resiliency."
 
The Vikings shots 45 percent (33 of 73), including 11 of 27 from 3-point range. Those figures were just slightly better than SPU, which registered 43-percent accuracy from the floor (31 of 72) and was 12 of 31 on treys.
 
The Falcons were outrebounded 49-37 despite a career-high 10 boards from point guard Parker.
 
In the first half, after Western got the first basket on a layup by Drechsel the lead changed hands five times before the Falcons went on a 12-2 run. Rasmussen score five points during the run that Miller capped with a 3-pointer that provided a 13-7 lead five minutes into the contest.
 
After an exchange of baskets, the Vikings reeled off eight straight points, five of them from Stafford, to even the score 19-19. SPU reclaimed the lead by scoring the next five points.
 
The Falcons gained their largest advantage, at 33-25, when Betu followed a fastbreak layup with a 3-pointer at the 4:02 mark.
 
Western went on a 13-2 run, going ahead 38-35 on an open-court layup by Hommes.
 
SPU leveled the halftime score at 38-38 on a three-point play by Rasmussen five seconds before the break.
 
The Falcons take next week off from competition before returning to action with two road games in Hawaii. They play at Chaminade on Dec. 14 and visit Hawaii-Hilo on Dec. 16. Both games are scheduled to start at 9:30 p.m. Pacific Time.
 
 
NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL
Saturday, Dec. 3, 2016
Brougham Pavilion/Seattle, Wash.
 
#18 Western Washington 96, at Seattle Pacific 91 (ot)
 
WESTERN WASHINGTON (7-0, 2-0 GNAC)
Hommes 9-15 2-2 24, Parker 0-6 2-4 2, Schilder 3-4 5-8 11, Stafford 10-21 5-5 28, Drechsel 5-16 1-1 11, Jasinsky 3-5 2-2 10, Kingma 3-4 0-0 8, Wallace 0-0 2-4 2, Fernandez 0-2 0-0 0. Totals 33-73 19-26 96.
 
SEATTLE PACIFIC (4-4, 1-1 GNAC)
Wooten 3-11 2-2 10, Miller 3-14 4-5 11, Rasmussen 9-21 3-6 25, Parker 4-10 2-4 13, Betu 9-11 6-7 26, Long 3-3 0-0 6, Eisenhower 0-0 0-0 0, Khan 0-2 0-0 0. Totals 31-72 17-24 91.
 
Western Washington     38   43   15  -  96
Seattle Pacific        38   43   10  -  91
 
3-point-goals--WWU 11-27 (Hommes 4-7, Stafford 3-8, Kingma 2-3, Jasinsky 2-3, Parker 0-1, Drechsel 0-5), SPU 12-31 (Rasmussen 4-11, Parker 3-7, Betu 2-3, Wooten 2-4, Miller 1-4, Khan 0-2). Fouled out--WWU-Drechsel, SPU-Wooten, Khan. Rebounds--WWU 49 (Stafford 9), SPU 37 (Parker 10). Assists--WWU 20 (Stafford 8), SPU 20 (Betu 7). Total fouls—WWU 18, SPU 21. Technical fouls--WWU-None, SPU-None. A-612.
 
 
Next Men's Basketball Game
Seattle Pacific at Chaminade
Wednesday, Dec. 14, 9:30 p.m. PST
McGabe Gym / Honolulu, Hawaii