THE SCHEDULE
Thursday, Jan. 6                  Simon Fraser at Seattle Pacific, 5:15 p.m.
                                                Brougham Pavilion / Seattle, Wash.
                                                Live Webcast        Live stats
 
Saturday, Jan. 8                   Western Washington at Seattle Pacific, 4:15 p.m.
                                                Brougham Pavilion / Seattle, Wash.
                                                Live Webcast        Live stats
 
 
SEATTLE – One opponent has the conference Preseason Player of the Year. The other opponent is nationally ranked.
 
The Seattle Pacific Falcons will have their hands full when they step onto their home court for the first time in 2022.
 
Coming off a women's basketball road victory at Alaska Fairbanks on New Year's Day, SPU returns to Brougham Pavilion this week for a pair of challenging Great Northwest Athletic Conference contests.
 
Up first for the Falcons (6-7, 2-1 GNAC) is Simon Fraser, which features talented senior guard Jessica Jones, voted by GNAC coaches as the conference's top player prior to the start of the season. That game tips off at 5:15 p.m. on Thursday.
 
Western Washington, which is undefeated at 10-0 overall, 2-0 GNAC and ranked No. 7 in the latest national top-25 poll, comes to town on Saturday at 4:15 p.m.
 
FOLLOW IT LIVE
Both games will have a live a Webcast and live stats. Greg Sexton will call the play-by-play. The appropriate links can be found at the top of this story.
 
CHANGE OF PLANS
Both of this week's games were supposed to be part of doubleheaders. However, the SPU men's games –  Thursday against Saint Martin's and Saturday against Western Oregon – have been postponed for health and safety reasons.

TICKET TALK
Fans are welcome to attend games in person at Brougham Pavilion.
 
In compliance with King County guidelines, spectators 12 years of age and older attending SPU athletic events will need to provide proof of full vaccination or present a negative COVID-19 test. Before purchasing or picking up tickets at venue Will Call windows, attendees will be required to show evidence of vaccination. Acceptable forms of proof include a CDC-issued Vaccination Record Card, a photo of the card, the Washington state myIRmobile.com app or a document from a health care provider.
 
Those who cannot provide proof of vaccination may instead present documentation of a negative FDA-approved COVID-19 test administered by a professional and dated within 72 hours of the event.
 
For additional details, please click on the SPU ATHLETICS ENTRY POLICY webpage. Mask wearing is mandatory at all times and spectators are encouraged to social distance when possible. Save the wait in line and obtain your SPU soccer tickets in advance by purchasing them online the SPU TICKETS webpage.
 




SO WHAT'S THE STORY THIS WEEK?
-- The Falcons are 4-2 at home.
-- Thursday's SPU-Simon Fraser game will be the first between those two teams since Feb. 8, 2020, in Brougham. Simon won, 75-68. The two teams did not meet during last winter's abbreviated season.
-- The Falcons and Western Washington played twice in a back-to-back set to close the 2021 schedule. The Vikings won both, 58-50 in Bellingham and 59-57 in overtime in Seattle.
-- The game against Western Washington will be SPU's fourth against a national top-25 opponent this season. The previous ones were Nov. 15 at home against then-No 25 Hawaii Pacific (the Sharks won, 69-60), Nov. 20 against then-No. 5 Azusa Pacific (the Cougars won in overtime, 67-61), and Dec. 18 at home against Puget Sound, which was ranked No. 21 in NCAA Division III (Seattle Pacific prevailed, 66-56).
-- Last Saturday's 22-point victory at Alaska Fairbanks helped the Falcons get back onto the plus side for scoring margin for the first since since the third game of the season back on Nov. 15. Seattle Pacific now has scored 779 points (59.9 average) and has allowed 760 (58.5).
-- SPU and Western are two of the top defensive teams in the GNAC. The Vikings yield just 49.7 points per contest, the third-lowest total in all of NCAA Division II. The Falcons, at 58.5, are No 56 among the 297 D2 programs (the top 20 percent).
-- In line with that, Western Washington and Seattle Pacific are the two toughest teams to shoot against in the conference. Opposing teams have hit just 31.8 percent against the Vikings and 34.4 percent against the Falcons.
-- Senior point guard Abril Rexach Roure is just one assist away from reaching 600 for her career. Of her current 599, she has 200 assists with the Falcons, The other 399 came during her two seasons at Eastern Wyoming College.
-- Senior forward Natalie Hoff is closing in on the career 500-point milestone. She needs another 16, coming into this week with 484.
-- Head coach Mike Simonson is 0-4 against Simon Fraser and 1-5 against Western Washington.
 
SCOUTING SIMON FRASER: 5-6, 1-1 GNAC (tie 5^th)
All-time series: Simon leads, 25-13. Current series streak: Simon won 4. Last time: Simon 75, SPU 68 (Feb. 8, 2020 at Seattle). Last SPU series win: SPU 85, Simon 59 (March 1, 2018 at Anchorage; GNAC first round). Simon Fraser on the Web.
Simon in a nutshell: Simon Fraser lost four of its first six games, but come into this week having won its last two, including an 84-71 GNAC victory at home against Western Oregon last Saturday. In that game against the Wolves, senior 5-foot-9 guard Jessica Jones made her season debut, getting the start and logging 12 points, four rebounds, and five assists. Jessica Wiszotski, a 6-2 sophomore guard / forward, averages 17.5 points per game, No. 4 in the GNAC, and poured in 27 against WOU. She shoots at a .489 clip, and her .407 percentage from 3-point range (22 of 54) ranks No. 4 in the conference. No one else averages in double digits, although senior 6-1 forward Claudia Hart is close at 9.8. Both Simon Fraser and its opponents tend to put lots of points on the board. Simon leads the GNAC in scoring at 73.3 points per game, with four games in the 70s and two in the 80s. But it allows an average of 69.0, with three opponents in the 70s and three in the 80s.
 
SCOUTING THE WESTERN WASHINGTON VIKINGS: 10-0, 2-0 GNAC (1^st)
All-time series: WWU leads, 63-32. Current series streak: WWU won 5. Last time: WWU 59, SPU 57 OT (March 6, 2021 at Seattle). Last SPU series win: SPU 61, WWU 59 (Jan. 17, 2019 at Seattle). Vikings on the Web.
Vikings in a nutshell: Not only is Western Washington winning, it is doing so convincingly. Of its 10 victories, only two have been decided by single digits: 78-73 at Cal State San Marcos, one of the leading teams in the CCAA, and 58-51 at Colorado Christian. Senior 6-foot guard Emma Duff sets the pace on offense with her average of 14.0 points per game, No. 6 in the GNAC. She opened the season with an impressive pair of double-doubles: 22 points-11 rebounds vs. Humboldt State, and 23 points-13 rebounds vs. Azusa Pacific. Duff shoots .472 from the floor and leads the team on the boards at 7.5 per game. Junior 5-10 guard Mollie Olson chips in 11.2 points and shoots .532 from the field (25 of 47). In fact, three of Western's regulars who average double-digit minutes per game are above .500 for shooting. Along with Olson, sophomore 6-1 center Carley Zargoza is at .589 (33 of 56), and junior 5-10 guard Avery Dykstra, who has started all 10 games, is at .588 (30 of 51).
 
ONE FOR ALL, ALL FOR ONE
With their 20 assists last Saturday at Alaska Fairbanks, the Falcons now have hit that total in each of their past two games.

 

"We talk about playing as one, five players playing as one and sharing the basketball," head coach Mike Simonson said after the Fairbanks game. "To have 20 assists again is a testament to how much we shared the ball. We didn't care who scored … You have people like Abril (Rexach Roure) and Kaprice (Boston) who share the ball well, and the next you know, somebody else passes it, then somebody else passes it, and that how we wound up getting 20 assists."
 
In a 66-56 victory against Puget Sound on Dec. 18, SPU had 20 assists on 25 baskets (80 percent). Of the 14 players who saw action, eight had at least one assist, and four had multiple assists. In the 67-45 win at UAF, it had 20 on 24 baskets (83.3 percent), with nine of the 12 players having at least one and six of those having multiples.
 
For the season, the totals stand at 186 assists on 295 baskets (63.1 percent). That is the second-highest percentage of assisted baskets in the entire GNAC. The only with a higher mark is Saint Martin's at 68.0 percent (174 assists on 256 baskets).

MORE THAN JUST A PASSER
Indeed, Abril Rexach Roure racked up a combined count of 11 assists in the Puget Sound and Alaska Fairbanks games – slightly more than a quarter of Seattle Pacific's 40.
 
 

But the diminutive native of Spain – she stands just 5-foot-5 – is doing more than just taking the ball upcourt and then passing it to an open teammate. She's pulling it down off the boards, too. Along with her six dishes against UPS, she collected seven rebounds. Her five assists at UAF were supplemented by three rebounds.
 
In fact, as good of a passer as she is – and Rexach Roure leads the Falcons with 37 assists – she is third on the team in rebounding with 53, an average of 4.1 per game. That includes a pair of games with seven, and another pair with six. Her career high is nine during a game against Miles Community College while a sophomore at Eastern Wyoming College in 2019.
 
She reached triple-digits on the boards both seasons there: 103 as a freshman (along with 156 assists) and 140 as a sophomore (243 assists). As a junior during her first year at Seattle Pacific, she had 66 (87 assists), and last year, it was 46 (with 26 assists).
 
ALWAYS A FIRST TIME
--Freshman wing Lolo Weatherspoon scored her first college points and grabbed her first rebound in Saturday's game at Alaska Fairbanks. The first point was on a free throw early in the fourth quarter. Her first basket was a lay-in off a feed from Beth Pettingill with 2:38 left in the game.
-- Redshirt freshman guard Hunter Beirne recorded her first blocked shot.
 
AROUND THE WEST
Of the eight GNAC games scheduled for last week, four actually got played. The only team to get in both games was Western Oregon, losing at Simon Fraser on Thursday and at Western Washington on Saturday. WWU, with its 10-0 record, remains the only undefeated team in the entire West Region. Alaska Anchorage (8-1, 1-0 GNAC) has a tough road trip to Northwest Nazarene (8-3, 2-1 GNAC) and Central Washington (8-4, 1-2 GNAC). Alaska Fairbanks, which had its season openers at Western Oregon and Saint Martin's postponed in the first week of December, is looking a stretch of four road games in eight nights: at Saint Martin's on Tuesday, at Central Washington on Thursday, at Northwest Nazarene on Saturday, and at Western Oregon next Tuesday.
 
Cal State East Bay (10-1, 5-0), winner of nine straight overall, has sole possession of first place in the California Collegiate Athletic Association. But lurking right behind are Stanislaus State (10-2, 5-1 CCAA) and Cal State San Marcos (7-2, 5-1 CCAA). East Bay is set to host Stanislaus on Saturday night in Hayward.
 
Azusa Pacific has opened up a bit of space in the Pacific West Conference, thanks in part to winning it's 1-vs.-2 showdown against Dominican on New Year's Day, 72-65. The Cougars are now 9-1, 5-0 in conference play; the Penguins are 7-6, 4-2 Pac West. But as of Tuesday, eight of this week's 14 games had been postponed.
 
UP NEXT
The Falcons return to the road next week, visiting Saint Martin's on Thursday, Jan. 13, and Western Oregon on Saturday the 15^th. The game against the Saints in Lacey tips off at 5:15 p.m. The WOU contests starts at 2:00 p.m. in Monmouth.
 
 
GNAC STANDINGS
                                                  Conference      Overall
Western Washington         2-0       10-0
Alaska Anchorage           1-0        8-1
Montana State Billings     2-1        7-7
Seattle Pacific            2-1        6-7
Montana State Billings     1-1        7-7
Simon Fraser               1-1        5-6
Central Washington         1-2        8-4
Saint Martin's             0-1        8-2
Alaska Fairbanks           0-1        1-5
Western Oregon             0-2        4-5