TURLOCK, Calif. – For three straight Decembers now, Seattle Pacific and Stanislaus State have gone down to the final minute of their non-conference women's basketball game, each team having a chance to take it
 
All three years, the Warriors have found a way to escape with a 'W'.
 
Schuyler Berry had a double career-high of 22 points and 16 rebounds. Olivia Mayer added her own double-double of 12 points and 10 rebounds, but Stanislaus closed the game on an 11-4 run to pull out a 70-66 victory on Thursday night in Fitzpatrick Arena.
 
The Warriors (9-4), sitting in first place in the California Collegiate Athletic Association at 4-0, extended their winning streak to six. The Falcons (4-6), co-leaders in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference at 2-0, saw theirs end at three.
 
In 2021 when the teams played in Turlock, Stanislaus State fended off a fourth-quarter SPU rally for a 57-55 victory. Last year in Seattle, the Warriors rallied from 11 down in the fourth quarter and won on a buzzer-beater, 63-62.

"Three times, a close game every time – and we've been on the bummer end every time," head coach Mike Simonson said.
 
"A close game is always a good thing, especially on the road," Simonson added. "We feel like we could have had it. But you always learn more from a loss than you do a win, and we hope this is a learning experience that equals a couple of wins in conference play."
 
 

In addition to her points and rebounds for her first career double-double, junior center Berry set a single-game program record for free throw accuracy, going a perfect 10 for 10. The previous record (which requires a minimum of 10 attempts) was .929 by Kerie Hughes in 2002 and Jordan McPhee in 2018. Both hit 13 of 14.
 
For the game, Berry drained 6 of 10 from the field. She also tied blocked three shots and tied her career high with three assists.
 
"Going into the game, we challenged Schuyler to be aggressive to score," Simonson said. "I told the team that Sky needed to have eight-plus shots because she's that vital to our offense. She was very efficient from the field and got to the free throw line, and that's where I'm really proud of her. She has spent a bunch of time working on and improving her free throws. I know that's an area she really wanted to improve on, and she has."
 
Emilia Bishop added a career-high 12 points for Seattle Pacific, which was without its regular starting backcourt of redshirt junior Hunter Beirne and senior Hailey Marlow, both sidelined with minor injuries. Freshman guard Layne Kearns got the start in one of those spots and responded with eight points and a career-high eight rebounds.
 
DELETING A DOUBLE-DIGIT DEFICIT
SPU started the fourth quarter down by nine points at 55-46, and had been down by as many as 11 points in the third quarter at 51-40.
 
 

A 22-8 scoring run, with 10 of those points from Berry, five from Mayer, three from Leasure and two each from Kearns and Bishop, turned that 11-point deficit into a three-point lead at 62-59 with 3:50 left in the game – the first time since midway through the opening quarter that the Falcons had been in front.
 
But that left enough time for Stanislaus State to put together its game-ending surge. The Warriors ran off five in a row to go up 64-62, then a Lolo Weatherspoon jumper tied it for SPU. Stanislaus went up 66-64 at the 1:20 mark; Kearns answered with a putback at 50.5 seconds for a 66-66 tie.
 
Down by one at 67-66 with 25 seconds to go after a Taylor Pilot free throw for the Warriors, the Falcons advanced the ball to frontcourt after a timeout. Pilot stepped in front of an entry pass into the key and swiped the ball. SPU was forced to foul three straight times in an attempt to get another possession, and did get it back after Liliana Marques hit just one of her two foul shots with 10.6 seconds to go for a 68-66 edge.
 
Freshman guard Haylie-Anne Ohta had a good look at a 3-pointer from the left side, only to see it fall short. Pilot was fouled after grabbing the rebound and hit both free throws to clinch it with seven-tenths of a second remaining.

 

"The second half, we played pretty solid offense from a scoring standpoint," Simonson said. "We were really aggressive, we shared the ball well (SPU's 16 assists was a season high), and that was the key – getting their defense broken down, finding teammates, and making sound plays, which we did.
 
"The bummer was that it was a sound play, and then we would have an unsound play, whether it was on the defensive end or a turnover on the next play. So all of our runs were very much mini-runs, and for how well some our play was, we would have hoped we would have had a longer run."
 
BY THE NUMBERS
-- The Falcons had their second-highest shooting night of the season from the field, hitting 44.2 percent (23 of 52). Stanislaus State was at 42.6 percent (26 of 61).
 

-- While Schuyler Berry was perfect at the free throw line, Emilia Bishop was flawless from the field, going 6 for 6 on the way to her first college double-digit scoring game. Her previous career high was eight.
-- Berry's 10-for-10 performance at the line gets her up to 83.8 percent for the season (31 of 37). That was jump of six percentage from the .778 she had at the start of the game, moving up to No. 7 (from No. 12) on the GNAC list.
-- Layne Kearns' 4-for-4 night at the line boosted her percentage to .826 and has her right behind Berry at No. 8 in the GNAC.
-- Olivia Mayer's double-double was her second in a row and fourth this season.
-- Seattle Pacific dominated on the boards with more than twice as many as Stanislaus State, 49-23. Of those, 17 came at the offensive end, netting a 20-5 margin second-chance points.
-- The Warriors made up for most of that with 31 points off 27 Falcons turnovers
 
UP NEXT
The Falcons return to the court on Saturday at Fresno Pacific in their penultimate non-conference game of the season Tip-off is at 2:00 p.m.


NCAA WOMEN'S BASKETBALL
Thursday, Dec. 14, 2023
Fitzpatrick Arena / Turlock, Calif.
 
Stanislaus State 70, Seattle Pacific 66
 
SEATTLE PACIFIC (4-6)
Weatherspoon 1-2 0-0 2, Mayer 5-13 1-2 12, Berry 6-10 10-10 22, Ohta 1-6 2-2 4, Kearns 2-6 4-4 8, Carlisle 0-2 0-2 0, Leasure 2-7 0-2 6, Bishop 6-6 0-2 12.  Totals 23-52 17-24 66.
 
STANISLAUS STATE (9-4)
Addison 3-6 1-2 7, Richardson 0-1 0-0 0, Patterson 1-7 0-0 3, Blake 3-9 2-2 11, Marques 4-9 1-2 11, Hornung 4-6 2-2 10, Pilot 3-6 4-6 10, Harris 2-6 1-2 5, Woodson 1-4 0-0 2, Walker 3-5 0-0 7, Maxwell 0-0 0-0 0, Sran 1-1 0-0 2, Lewis 1-1 0-0 2.  Totals 26-61 11-16 70.
 
Seattle Pacific     12           14           20           20           -- 66
Stanislaus State  12           19           24           15           -- 70
 
3-point goals – SPU 3-14 (Mayer 1-3, Ohta 0-5, Kearns 0-1, Carlisle 0-1, Leasure 2-4) Stan 7-20 (Addison 0-1, Patterson 1-6, Blake 3-6, Marques 2-4, Woodson 0-2, Walker 1-1).  Fouled out – SPU: Berry, Weatherspoon.  Rebounds – SPU 49 (Berry 16, Mayer 10), Stan 23 (Hornung 4).  Assists – SPU 16 (Berry 3, Ohta 3, Kearns 3, Leasure 3), Stan 15 (Pilot 3).  Turnovers (points allowed) – SPU 27 (31), Stan 15 (18)  Total fouls – SPU 18, Stan 26.  Technical fouls – Stan: Pilot.  Attendance – 103.
 
 
Next game
Seattle Pacific at Fresno Pacific
Saturday, 2:00 p.m.
Special Event Center / Fresno, Calif.