METRO STATE THANKSGIVING CLASSIC SCHEDULE
Friday, Nov. 24                     Seattle Pacific at Colorado Christian, 2:00 p.m. PST
                                                CCU Event Center / Lakewood, Colo.
                                                Live Webcast        Live stats
 
Saturday, Nov. 25                Seattle Pacific at Metro State, Noon PST
                                                Auraria Event Center / Denver, Colo.
                                                Live Webcast        Live stats
 
 
SEATTLE – As they head toward the mountains this week, the Seattle Pacific Falcons are hoping they can get over the hump.
 
Coming off a rough weekend in California, SPU will try to get back on the women's basketball winning track in Colorado with two games at the Metro State Thanksgiving Classic.
 
Although it's considered a preseason tournament, the Falcons (1-3) will play their two opponents in their respective venues. First stop is Lakewood on Friday to take on Colorado Christian at 2:00 p.m. Pacific time. Then on Saturday, it's back to Denver for a noon PST contest against Metro State.
 
Seattle Pacific completed a rugged four-game season-opening slate last weekend, falling 69-57 to host and No. 12-ranked Azusa Pacific on Friday and 74-44 to No. 22 Cal State San Marcos on Saturday, both at APU. The first four opponents for the Falcons – Azusa and San Marcos last weekend; Cal State Los Angeles and Cal State Dominguez Hills the previous weekend – all reached last year's NCAA West Regionals.
 
FOLLOW IT LIVE
Both games will have live Webcasts and live stats. The appropriate links are at the top of this story.
 
 

BEIRNE ON TOP AT FOUL LINE
Redshirt junior point guard Hunter Beirne so far is the only perfect free throw shooter in the GNAC. She is 8 for 8 and is listed as occupying the top spot in the GNAC stats.
 
Beirne got six of those free throws inside the final minute against Cal State San Marcos on Nov. 11 in Bellingham, as she was fouled three times while the Toros tried to regain possession of the ball.
 
She's not the only Falcon in the conference top 10. Junior center Schuyler Berry ranks No. 7 at .867 (13 of 15). Along with a perfect 4-for-4 against Azusa Pacific, Berry went 7 for 8 against Cal State Los Angeles on Nov. 10.
 




SO WHAT'S THE STORY THIS WEEK?
-- This is the second straight Thanksgiving weekend that the Falcons have spent in Colorado. Last year, the split a pair of games at the Regis Thanksgiving Classic in Denver, beating host Regis, 66-63, but falling a Colorado School of Mines 65-54.
-- Both contests will be true road games, as was last Friday's Azusa Pacific contest. SPU's other three games so far have been on neutral courts.
-- Both also will count toward the West Region rankings, the first set of which comes out in February. The Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference is not part of the West, but because it is considered a "contiguous conference" (i.e., directly adjacent to the three West conferences), games do count for the rankings.
-- Friday's contest at Colorado Christian will be Seattle Pacific's third straight against a squad of Cougars. Last week's two opponents – Azusa and San Marcos – use that same moniker.
-- Although they have struggled to put down shots, the Falcons have, for the most part, done a solid job of pulling down rebounds. On the first weekend in Bellingham, they had a 42-38 advantage on Cal State L.A. and were tied with Dominguez Hills at 39-39. Last week, SPU had a 37-33 edge on Azusa Pacific. Only Cal State San Marcos (40-29 in last week's second game) has had more than the Falcons.
-- Junior forward Olivia Mayer has been the pacesetter on the boards in three of the four games. She had back-to-back double-digit performances (12 vs. both Dominguez Hills and Azusa), and led the way against San Marcos with seven.
-- Mayer ranks fifth in the GNAC at 9.5 rebounds per game.
-- In addition to Hunter Beirne and Schuyler Berry in foul shooting, the Falcons have five other entries among the GNAC top 10. Beirne is tied for No. 6 in steals at 2.0 per game, and Mayer is No. 9 at 1.9; Hailey Marlow is tied for No. 7 in assists at 3.3; Mayer is tied for No. 6 in blocked shots at 1.0, and Berry is tied for No. 9 at 0.8.
-- Seattle Pacific is eager to improve its overall shooting this week, as it is hitting just 34.4 percent. The team is especially looking to pick up the pace from downtown, currently hitting 12.5 percent (8 of 64).
-- A trio of Falcons is having some success hitting the hole. Schuyler Berry is at 50 percent (14 of 28), Grace Leasure is at 48 percent (12 of 25), and Lolo Weatherspoon s at 41.7 (10 of 24).
-- In the Azusa Pacific game last Friday, SPU had its biggest scoring run of the season, 29-10, stretching from midway in the third quarter through midway in the fourth, cutting a 48-24 deficit all the way down to 58-53.
-- The Falcons had a season-low 12 turnovers against Cal State San Marcos. That was just one more than last season's team low of 11.
-- Mike Simonson will be coaching against Colorado State for the first time. He has seen Metro State once before, as the Roadrunners scored a 60-55 victory during the 2021-22 preseason.
 
SCOUTING THE COLORADO CHRISTIAN COUGARS: 2-2, 0-0 RMAC
All-time series: SPU leads, 2-1.  Current series streak: SPU won 2.  Last time: SPU 90, CCU 53 (Nov. 20, 2009 at Seattle).  Last CCU series win: CCU 84, SPU 81 (Nov. 26 1999 at Lakewood).  Cougars on the Web.
Cougars in a nutshell: Colorado Christian has split its first four games and is coming off a 77-61 loss to Colorado Mesa. Providing a good chunk of the scoring punch is sophomore 6-1 strong forward Maggie Hutka, averaging 17.5 points per game. She had back-to-back 20-pointers, with 23 against Texas-Tyler and 25 against Langston. Hutka hits a respectable .431 from the field, but is very accurate from downtown at 61.5 percent (8 of 13). She also pulls down 7.0 rebounds per game, tied for the team lead with junior 6-1 guard Dasiya Jones. Also averaging in double-digit scoring for the Cougars is sophomore 5-6 point guard Nicole Bowlin at 10.0 per game.
 
SCOUTING THE METRO STATE ROADRUNNERS: 0-3, 0-0 RMAC
All-time series: Tied, 1-1.  Current series streak: Metro won 1.  Last time: Metro 60, SPU 55 (Nov. 26, 2021 at Ellensburg).  Last SPU series win: SPU 77, Metro 74 (Dec. 13, 1986 at Denver).  Roadrunners on the Web.
Roadrunners in a nutshell: Metro State is still looking for its first win as it heads into the holiday week, but has played an extraordinarily tough schedule. The Roadrunners faced a pair of preseason top-25 teams on the road at the season-opening Region Conference Challenge, falling to No. 19 Angelo State, 64-39, and to No. 24 Texas Woman's University, 66-36. They will play co-No. 13 Eckerd on Friday before facing SPU on Saturday. Mikylah Espinosa, a sophomore 5-foot-8 guard, leads Metro State in scoring at 9.7 points per game. Brianna Sealy, a sophomore 5-11 forward, averages 7.3 points on .500 shooting (9 of 18), and is by far the team's leading rebounder at 9.3 per game.
 
FALCONS REPLAY
-- Olivia Mayer recorded her second straight double-double, this one with 13 points and 12 rebounds, and Grace Leasure popped for a career-high 12 points off the bench, but Azusa Pacific tore off an 18-0 third-quarter run, and that ultimately was enough to secure a 69-57 victory against SPU on the first night of the Cougar Shootout last Friday.
-- Cal State San Marcos, ranked No. 22 nationally, bolted to a 21-3 lead in the first quarter and just kept going from there on the way to a 74-44 victory against Seattle Pacific last Saturday on the final day of the Cougar Shootout at
The teams traded the first two baskets of the game – a 3-pointer by San Marcos, and a lay-in by SPU's Lolo Weatherspoon – before the Cougars ran off 18 of the next 19 points.
 
GRACE HAS IT GOING
Redshirt freshman wing Grace Leasure came through with two solid performances last week in Azusa.
 
 

On Friday against host APU, she dropped in a then-career high 12 points on 4 of 7 shooting from the floor (2 of 4 from 3-point range). Leasure also grabbed two rebounds, one at each end.
 
She was even better on Saturday with 16 points on 7-of-11 accuracy. She had another two rebounds, but this time also dished out three assists.
 
For the weekend, that gave her 28 points and a 61.1 percent shooting touch (11 of 18). For the first four games of the season, Leasure is averaging 8.3 ponts on .480 shooting (12 of 25), plus 2.3 rebounds. Her 18.5 minutes per game leads all of the Falcon reserves.
 
SIMO SAYS …
(On the first two weekends)
'We've played four of the toughest teams in the region and found where we need to improve. One big area is on the offensive end. I think we ran a lot of good offensive stuff and had a lot of good actions. Now the second part of that is putting the ball in that cylinder to score two or three points. In practice, we're scoring pretty well, and I like what we're doing in practice. We're still a solid defensive team, and we're getting better in all of those areas."
 
 

(On this week's opponents)
Colorado Christian and Metro have both played tough schedules, just like we have, and they've competed hard. Both are road games, so that will be a good test for us. We saw that at Azusa a little bit when the crowd is kind of against you and you're even feeling out the referees. These are both solid, well-coached teams, so we're going to have to bring our best basketball to Denver, which we plan on doing."
 
(On combining Thanksgiving and basketball)
"We're going to do our own version of turkey dinner. When we get in, we'll practice right away, then we'll have dinner. It sounds like a lot of the gals' families will be in town, so all those families are invited to come join us, and we'll do our own family thing for Thanksgiving, so we're excited about that."
 
MARCH TO A MILESTONE
In the making
100th field goal     Hunter Beirne (has 99)
100th rebound      Hailey Marlow (has 97)
200th rebound      Schuyler Berry (has 190)
                               Hunter Beirne (has 175)
500th rebound      Olivia Mayer (has 476)
 
Made last week
None
 
AROUND THE WEST
Montana State Billings, which is No. 10 in this week's WBCA national coaches poll, has the GNAC's best overall record through the first three weekends of non-conference play. The Yellowjackets are 5-1, with Western Washington next at 3-1. The Vikings were the only undefeated team in the conference until dropping a 73-68 decision to Cal State San Marcos in the Cougar Classic at Azusa Pacific last Friday.
 
Cal State San Bernardino did not play last weekend, so at 2-0 is not just the only undefeated team in the California Collegiate Athletic Association, it is the only undefeated team in the entire West Region. The Coyotes are in Fairbanks this weekend for the North Star Invitational, taking on the host Nanooks, along with Multnomah. Cal Poly Pomona, Cal State Los Angeles, and Sonoma State are all 3-1.
 
Fresno Pacific sports the Pacific West Conference's best record at 4-1, and there are two other teams that have just one defeat so far. Dominican is 3-1 and Chaminade is 2-1. Fresno has the holiday weekend off; Dominican has just one game, and Chaminade is home for two.
 
AROUND THE GNAC
Click on this link for the latest news, notes, results, and statistics from around the Great Northwest Athletic Conference.
 
UP NEXT
Seattle Pacific begins the conference portion of it schedule next week at home when the Alaska schools come to Brougham Pavilion. Fairbanks is in town on Thursday, Nov. 30 with a 5:15 p.m. tip-off to open a doubleheader. The Falcons men go against the Nanooks at  7:30. Anchorage visits on Saturday, Dec. 2, at 2:00 p.m. That also is a doubleheader opener, followed by SPU and UAA men at 4:15 p.m.
 
 
GNAC STANDINGS
                                                    GNAC                 Overall
Montana State Billings   0-0          5-1
Western Washington       0-0          3-1
Alaska Anchorage         0-0          2-1
Simon Fraser             0-0          5-3
Northwest Nazarene       0-0          3-2
Western Oregon           0-0          3-2
Central Washington       0-0          4-3
Saint Martin's           0-0          2-3
Seattle Pacific          0-0          1-3
Alaska Fairbanks         0-0          0-8