• FINAL STATS (html)  |  • VIDEO: SPU POSTGAME

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – This flock of birds has been successful flying north during the winter.
 
Gabe Colosimo scored 17 points Thursday and utilized 3-pointers to ignite runs in each half, sparking fourth-seeded Seattle Pacific to a 64-51 men's basketball victory over host Alaska Anchorage in the quarterfinal round of the Great Northwest Athletic Conference Tournament at the Alaska Airlines Center.
 
The Falcons (17-11) continued their uncanny mastery in Anchorage, having won in six of their last seven flights from Seattle to Anchorage. They advance to a semifinal matchup on Friday at 3:15 p.m. Pacific Time against top-seeded Western Oregon, which had a first-round bye.
 
The Seawolves (15-14) completed their season with a second defeat against SPU in Anchorage. They lost 57-54 at home on Jan. 6 before winning the rematch on Feb. 1 in Seattle, 67-62.
 
The Falcons went wire-to-wire for Thursday's victory, erupting for an early 19-2 run and never letting their hosts draw closer than nine points the rest of the way.


Second-year SPU coach Grant Leep credited defense for his team's tremendous start.
 
"We picked the best time of the year to play our best defensive game that we've played to this point of the season. We got off to a great start with our defense, then it fueled our offense. We found some easy, in-rhythm shots that we are accustomed to making.
 
"These guys just did a really good job getting off to a quick, early lead."
 
A sophomore point guard, Colosimo hit 3 of 6 trey attempts en route to his team-high point total. He added seven rebounds, three assists and two steals.
 
Hunter Eisenhower and Harry Cavell each contributed 11 points for the Falcons, who got eight points and a game-high 11 rebounds from Nathan Streufert. That led SPU's 43-25 superiority on the boards.
 
D.J. Ursery tallied a career-high 24 points for Anchorage and Malik Clements added 11.
 
"He's just really good. We did a decent job on him early," Leep said of Ursery. "What we really wanted to do was to make him go to his second or third way of scoring rather than being able to just drive us hard left. He got loose a little bit in the second half, but down the stretch our group did a nice job of helping Harry out."
 
Perhaps it was the fact the lower-seeded Seawolves were forced to sit on the visitor's bench for the first time. Or maybe they felt odd wearing their green road jerseys while SPU was in white. For whatever reason, UAA seemed out of sorts in the early going at its own arena.
 
"We had to approach it like a road game despite being in the white uniforms and sitting on the home bench," said Leep. "The depth of this league is incredible. No matter who we played, we knew it was going to be a battle. So hey, why not? Let's take on the home team.
 
"This is just a group that has a lot of perseverance and toughness about them. Let's add one more degree of difficulty to the challenge and they did a really good job of stepping up to meet that."
 
The Falcons generated a turnover and then forced five missed shots to open a 7-0 lead, capped by a Colosimo 3-pointer. Anchorage finally got on the scoreboard just over four minutes into the game on a jumper by Brian Pearson.
 
Four turnovers inside the opening five minutes prevented SPU from building a larger lead, but the miscues final subsided as the long-range shooting went on display.
 
The Falcons attempted a 3-pointer on each of their next six possessions and five of them were successful. Eisenhower, an Alaska native from nearby Wasilla, completed the stretch with three consecutive treys to provide a 19-2 advantage with 12:46 left in the first half.
 
Jack Macdonald halted SPU's 12-point run with a jumper at 11:42, but Trey Miller answered with a driving layup to push the margin to 21-4.
 
By the midway point of the first half, the Seawolves had made just 2 of 18 shots from the field. They started chipping away at the deficit and, after back-to-back baskets by Josiah Wood and Ursery, trailed only 27-17 with the ball for the final possession of the half.

 

Wood had the ball stripped by Cavell, who raced the length of the court for a layup at the buzzer to give SPU a 29-17 halftime lead. That was the lowest point total in a half by any Falcons' opponent this season.
 
The Seawolves were not whistled for any fouls during the first half and SPU committed only three. They made just one first-half 3-pointer in 10 tries, shooting only 25 percent overall (7 of 28) in the period.
 
A fastbreak layup by Ursery to start the second half brought UAA within 29-19. But Colosimo responded with consecutive 3-pointers to start an 11-point spree, turning back any notion of a Seawolves rally.
 
SPU's largest lead was 21 points, but that margin was steadily eroded by Anchorage, which closed within 60-51 on two free throws by Ursery with 55.6 seconds showing on the clock. The Falcons secured the decision by netting the game's final four points from the free throw line, the last three coming from Colosimo.
 
For the game SPU produced 42-percent accuracy from the field (22 of 53), including 8-for-22 shooting beyond the arc. The Seawolves were limited to 32-percent shooting (17 of 54) and converted just 2 of 18 treys.
 
Thursday's first game saw No. 3 seed Saint Martin's avert an upset attempt by sixth-seeded Central Washington, prevailing 87-84 in overtime. The Saints meet No. 2 Western Washington at 1 p.m. Friday in the semifinal round.
 
Leep and the Falcons have their own semifinal to worry about, against a Western Oregon team that has beaten them eight straight times dating back to 2015. WOU is ranked No. 3 nationally.
 
"We know them very well. My assistant Kegan Bone was an assistant with Coach (Jim) Shaw before coming with us to SPU so we are very familiar with their personnel," Leep said of the Wolves.
 
"They've done such a great job all year. They put so much pressure on you in the halfcourt and turning you over. That's going to be a really big key for us is our ability to take care of the ball. It fuels them on offense."
 
The Falcons combined for 29 turnovers in two regular-season meetings with Western Oregon. They had 12 miscues in an 83-79 home loss on Jan. 13 and turned the ball over 17 times in a 95-81 setback on Feb. 8 in Monmouth.
 
The GNAC Tournament championship game is scheduled for Saturday at 6:15 p.m. PST.
 
 
NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL
Thursday, March 1, 2018
Alaska Airlines Center / Anchorage, Alaska
 
(4) Seattle Pacific 64, (5) Alaska Anchorage 51
 
SEATTLE PACIFIC (17-11)
Wooten 1-3 1-2 3, Streufert 3-4 2-2 8, Cavell 4-10 3-6 11, Colosimo 5-10 4-6 17, Long 2-6 0-1 5, Eisenhower 3-6 2-2 11, Lizotte 2-10 0-0 5, Miller 2-4 0-0 4. Totals 22-53 12-19 64.
 
ALASKA ANCHORAGE (15-14)
Wood 2-8 0-1 4, Clements 2-8 5-5 11, Pearson 2-9 2-2 6, Macdonald 2-3 0-0 4, Ursery 9-19 6-6 24, Rymer 0-2 2-2 2, Jenkins 0-0 0-0 0, Peterson 0-3 0-0 0, Ryan 0-0 0-0 0, Osborne 0-2 0-0 0. Totals 17-54 15-16 51.
 
Seattle Pacific...............   29   35  -   64
Alaska Anchorage..............   17   34  -   51
 
3-point goals--SPU 8-22 (Eisenhower 3-5, Colosimo 3-6, Lizotte 1-6, Long 1-1, Wooten 0-1, Miller 0-1, Cavell 0-2), UAA 2-18 (Clements 2-5, Macdonald 0-1, Wood 0-5, Rymer 0-2, Peterson 0-3, Osborne 0-2). Fouled out--SPU-None, UAA-None. Rebounds--SPU 43 (Streufert 11), UAA 25 (Pearson 6). Assists--SPU 12 (Lizotte 4), UAA 10 (Clements 4). Total fouls--SPU 12, UAA 15. Technical fouls--SPU-None, UAA-None. A-509.
 
 
Next SPU Men's Basketball Game
GNAC Tournament semifinal
(#4) Seattle Pacific vs. (#1) Western Oregon
Friday, March 2, 3:15 p.m. PST
Alaska Airlines Center / Anchorage, Ak.