THE SCHEDULE
Friday, Jan. 22                                     Lewis-Clark State at Seattle Pacific, 6:00 p.m.
                                                                Brougham Pavilion / Seattle, Wash.
                                                                Live Webcast        Live stats
 
Saturday, Jan. 23                                Lewis-Clark State at Seattle Pacific, 2:00 p.m.
                                                                Brougham Pavilion / Seattle, Wash.
                                                                Live Webcast        Live stats
 

SEATTLE – They waited an extra couple months to tip off, then played three games in six days – and won two of them.
 
Now, the Seattle Pacific Falcons will try to add on to that respectable start to their women's basketball schedule when the play host to Lewis-Clark State for a pair of games this week in Brougham Pavilion.
 
Arriving from their hometown of Lewiston, Idaho, the Warriors will match up with the Falcons on Friday at 6:00 p.m., and again on Saturday afternoon at 2:00 p.m.
 
The Falcons got things going last Monday with a 56-51 victory against Pacific Lutheran, a game in which neither side ever built a double-digit lead. On Friday, a fourth-quarter rally fell short as Saint Martin's escaped with a  72-66 decision. But Seattle Pacific got even less than 24 hours later by downing the Saints, 61-50.
 
FOLLOW IT LIVE
Because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, fans will not be allowed to attend any of this year's games, home or away. However, they can keep up with all the action online with free live Webcasts and free live stats. Andrew Harvey will call the action for both of this week's games.
 
GNAC SALUTES ALTER AS PLAYER OF WEEK
When the season finally began on Jan. 11, Ashley Alter was rarin' to go. The junior, who tallied 57 through three games, was named the Great Northwest Athletic Conference Player of the Week on Monday.
 
 

Alter's total included back-to-back performances in the 20s against Saint Martin's She started out with 12 last Monday against Pacific Lutheran. Then on Friday, she poured in a career-high 25 points, easily eclipsing her previous best of 18, in a 72-66 loss to the Saints.
 
The next afternoon, Alter tallied another 20 as SPU turned the tables on Saint Martin's, 61-50. In that rematch, Alter also led the Falcons with four assists. For the week, she dished nine assists, grabbed 12 rebounds, came up with eight steals, and shot 45.8 percent from the field (22 of 48). In the two games combined vs. Saint Martin's, Alter played 76 of a possible 80 minutes.
 
TWEAKING THE SCHEDULE
Last Saturday's game against Saint Martin's originally was scheduled for Marcus Pavilion in Lacey. But a power outage that morning led to the contest being switched to Brougham Pavilion instead.
 
As a result, the Feb. 6 game against the Saints that had been scheduled for Seattle now will shift to Marcus Pavilion in Lacey on Thursday, Feb. 4 at 6:00 p.m. They'll meet again in the same gym on Friday the 5^th, also at 6:00 p.m.
 




SO WHAT'S THE STORY THIS WEEK?
-- Lewis-Clark State is an NAIA school that plays in the Cascade Collegiate Conference.
-- This will be L-C's first game since Jan. 9 when it rolled past College of Idaho, 75-39. Its three subsequent games – one vs. Whitworth, two vs. Simpson of California – were declared no contests due to covid reasons.
-- The Falcons and Warriors have played often in the past – 31 times, to be precise, although not since the 2006-07 season. At that time, LC State was in the Frontier Conference.
-- It has been back-and-forth series, with SPU currently having a 16-15 edge.
-- Most of those contests came from the Falcons' own NAIA days prior to them moving up to NCAA Division II beginning in 1991-92.
-- This is the first of five games that Seattle Pacific will have against CCC schools, all at home. College of Idaho (Jan. 29 and 30) and Northwest University of Kirkland (Feb. 10) are the others.
-- The Falcons are above .500 for the first time since the 2017-18 season.
-- Ashley Alter's back-to-back scoring games in the 20s last week against Saint Martin's marked the first time a Falcon has done that since Riley Evans had four in a row in December 2018. In a span of 14 days, Riley scored 27 against UC San Diego, 29 against Holy Names, 25 against Concordia-Portland, and 21 against Western Oregon.
-- With her 19.0 scoring average through three games, Alter is at the top of the GNAC list in that department. In addition, she is one of three players with eight steals.
-- Junior Natalie Hoff and sophomore Kayla Brundidge are tied for No. 4 on the conference rebounding at 6.3 (19 total).
-- The Falcons already have two double-doubles in the first three games. Hoff went for 11 points and 10 rebounds in the first Saint Martin's game last week, then Brundidge went for 10 and 10 in the second one. SPU had seven double-doubles last season: four by Ashlynn Burgess, two by Brundidge, and one by Alter.
 
SCOUTING THE LEWIS-CLARK STATE WARRIORS: 5-2, 0-0 CCC
All-time series: SPU leads, 16-14. Current series streak: SPU won 4. Last time: SPU 81, LCS 64 , PLU 46 (2006 at Seattle). Warriors on the Web.
Warriors in a nutshell: Lewis-Clark comes in a two-game winning streak, The first of those was a 60-50 victory against then-No. 6 Carroll College of Montana on Dec. 20. The Warriors have three players averaging in double-digit scoring, led by the 15.8 per-game average of senior 6-foot forward Kiara Burlage. That included a 34-point outing against Montana State-Northern on Dec. 12. Senior 6-2 forward Abbie Johnson averages 11.4 per game and also leads LC state on the boards with an average of 7.0. Jansen Edmiston, a senior 5-9 guard, chips in 10.0 points per game  Peyton Souvenir, a 5-8 senior, sets the pace as the playmaker with 29 assists, and has come up with a team-high 16 steals. Abby Farmer, a junior 5-10 guard, is a threat from 3-point range, hitting at a .429 clip (12 of 28). Edmiston and 6-3 post player Sara Muehlhausen each have earned a Cascade Collegiate Conference Player of the Week honor.
 
SIMONSON SAYS …
(On what stood out last week)
"What I'm really pleased with is we guarded really well. I think there were only two quarters where we played poor defense. So 10 of the 12 quarters, we played pretty darn good defense. I think we executed pretty well, especially on Saturday (against Saint Martin's)."
 
 

(On improving offensively)
"We just have to bury some more looks that I know we're capable of making. It's just the confidence of making them, and we'll start to see some better offense will come our way. I think our shot selection is pretty good – I don't think we have a selfish team at all. Most of the buckets we get are assisted buckets. That means we really share the ball, and I'm pleased with that. We just have to start putting them in the hoop, and it's going to come because were a good team."

(On Lewis-Clark State)
"They're going to do a little bit of everything – some press, some zone, some man-to-man, ana variation of a few things that are different offensively. We're going to have to be ready to adjust on the fly and be ready for whatever they're going to throw at us."

FALCONS REPLAY
-- Hunter Beirne made her college debut with 17 points, and Ashley Alter chipped in 12 last Monday as Seattle Pacific opened its season with a 56-51 victory against Pacific Lutheran in Brougham Pavilion.
-- Alter scored a career-high 25 points, and Natalie Hoff recorded her first career double-double, but it wasn't enough as a fourth-quarter SPU rally came up short last Friday in a 72-66 loss to Saint Martin's.
-- Alter poured in 20 points and Kayla Brundidge logged her third career double-double as the Falcons turned the tables on Saint Martins with a 61-50 victory last Saturday.
 
AROUND THE WEST
In the GNAC, Seattle Pacific, Saint Martin's, and Northwest Nazarene are the only teams currently playing. NNU had a jam-packed openng week, playing four games in five days – and in four different locations. The Nighthawks dropped their first three (at home to Concordia Irvine, then at Point Loma Nazarene in San Diego, and at Biola in La Mirada, California, before winning at Fresno Pacific.

The Pacific West Conference has begun play, with Hawaii Pacific sweeping a weekend series from Hawaii Hilo. The conference's 11 schools have grouped into three pods: Hawaii (Chaminade, Hawaii Hilo, Hawaii Pacific), Northern California (Academy of Art, Dominican, Fresno Pacific, Holy Names) and Southern California (Azusa Pacific, Biola, Concordia Irvine, and Point Loma Nazarene). Schools will play entirely within their pods.
 
UP NEXT
The Falcons are home again next weekend, hosting College of Idaho on Friday, Jan. 29 and Saturday, Jan. 30. Friday's game begins at 6:00 p.m., and Saturday's tips off at 2:00 p.m.