PORTLAND, Ore. -- Olivia Mayer served notice very early that she was going to be an impact player, both with Seattle Pacific and within the Great Northwest Athletic Conference.
 
She made that impact night in, night out – and the coaches around the conference certainly noticed.
 
On Tuesday, the junior 6-foot forward was named to the All-GNAC second team. Mayer was the only Falcon to make the list.
 
 

"She's a real quality, sound player and we're lucky to have her," head coach Mike Simonson said. "She has carried her weight and carried our team and put them on her back multiple times this year. I can think of a couple games we won because she went off in the fourth quarter  We're lucky to have her, and I'm lucky to coach her."
 
Mayer joined the Falcons after spending the previous two seasons at Whitworth of the Division III Northwest Conference. She finished the regular season in No. 8 on the GNAC scoring list at 15.5 points per game and No. 5 in rebounding at 8.1. She had five games of 20-plus points, including 31 at home on Feb. 3 in a 73-71 victory against Northwest Nazarene.
 
She also had 10 double-doubles. The latest of those was 15 points and 14 rebound in last Saturday's regular-season finale at Alaska Fairbanks, a 72-64 SPU victory.
 
"As soon as she steps on the court, she has a scorer's mentality, she wants to rebound, she wants to get loose balls," Simonson said. "Even in the game at Alaska Fairbanks last Saturday, it was win or go home – that's kind of what it felt like. In the fourth quarter, she was running down loose balls, she was rebounding – she had 14 rebounds and had another double-double. She just makes winning plays, and that makes it a lot easier to coach."

 

In other GNAC stats categories,  Mayer is No. 13 in field goal shooting at .451, No. 15 in free throw shooting at .710, tied for No. 9 in steals at 1.5, is tied for No. 11 in blocked shots at 0.8, and is No. 6 in minutes played at 31.3.
 
Mayer has 435 points this season for the Falcons, the first SPU player to top 400 since Jordan McPhee racked up 425 during the 2017-18 season.
 
Her 227 rebounds mark the first time a Falcon has topped 200 since Cici West collected 237 in 2018-19.
 
"I knew we were asking a lot of Liv," Simonson said. "She was going to have to change levels (from D3 to D2), and she was going to have to change positions, because at Whitworth, she was mostly a 5 (center) and here, she's more of a 4 (strong forward) for us.
 
"It was a big ask. The first thing we saw was her rebounding was just spot-on, she was a double-double machine right from the get-go, and as the year has gone on, her scoring has just improved and improved," Simonson added.
 
Mayer and the rest of the Falcons are heading to Ellensburg this week for the GNAC Tournament in Central Washington's Nicholson Arena. Seattle Pacific, seeded No. 6, begins action on Thursday with a first-round game against No. 3 seed Alaska Anchorage. Tip-off is at noon.

 
2023-24 ALL-GNAC WOMEN'S BASKETBALL
Player of the Year: Kola Bad Bear, Montana State Billings
Coach of the Year: Kevin Woodin, Montana State Billings
Defensive Player of the Year: Kortney Nelson, Montana State Billing
Newcomer of the Year: Kola Bad Bear, Montana State Billings
Freshman of the Year: Kendall Clark, Northwest Nazarene

First Team

Name	School	Position	Ht.	Yr.	Hometown (Previous School)
*!$Brooke Walling	Western Washington	F	6-3	Sr.	Vancouver, Wash. (Fresno State)
*Kola Bad Bear	Montana State Billings	F	6-2	Sr.	Billings, Mont. (Montana State)
*!Sunny Huerta	Central Washington	G	5-4	Jr.	Whittier, Calif. (Saint Paul)
*&@Asher Cai	Central Washington	G	5-9	So.	Colfax, Wash. (Colfax)
!#Jessica Wisotzki	Simon Fraser	G/F	6-2	Sr.	Langley, B.C. (Walnut Grove Secondary)
*Sophia Wisotzki	Simon Fraser	G	5-10	Jr.	Langley, B.C. (Walnut Grove Secondary)

 
Second Team

Name	School	Position	Ht.	Yr.	Hometown (Previous School)
%$Kortney Nelson	Montana State Billings	G	5-8	Sr.	Scobey, Mont. (Scobey)
Olivia Mayer	Seattle Pacific	F	6-0	Jr.	Spokane, Wash. (Gonzaga Prep)
Tori Hollingshead	Alaska Anchorage	F	6-3	Jr.	Orem, Utah (Umpqua CC)
@Dyauni Boyce	Montana State Billings	F	5-11	Jr.	Winifred, Mont. (Winifred)
Mason Oberg	Western Washington	G	5-5	So.	Vancouver, Wash. (Union)
Senya Rabouin	Alaska Anchorage	G	5-5	Jr.	Phoenix, Ariz. (Central Arizona Coll.)

 
Honorable Mention

Name	School	Position	Ht.	Yr.	Hometown (Previous School)
Kayla Johnson	Alaska	F	5-10	So.	Federal Way, Wash. (Decatur)
!+Vishe' Rabb	Alaska Anchorage	F	5-9	Sr.	Springfield, Minn. (Springfield)
Capri Sims	Central Washington	F	6-0	Fr.	Post Falls, Idaho (Post Falls)
@Shayla Montague	Montana State Billings	G	5-11	Gr.	Billings, Mont. (Billings West)
Kendall Clark	Northwest Nazarene	G/F	5-10	Fr.	Melba, Idaho (Melba)
Madeline Gebers	Northwest Nazarene	G/F	6-0	Jr.	Kennewick, Wash. (Spokane Falls CC)
%Anjel Galbraith	Saint Martin's	G	5-5	Sr.	Vallejo, Calif. (Purdue Univ. Northwest)
@Gemma Cutler	Simon Fraser	F	6-2	Jr.	N. Vancouver, B.C. (St. Thomas Aquinas)
%Cali McClave	Western Oregon	G	5-9	Jr.	Corvallis, Ore. (Crescent Valley)
^$Riley Dykstra	Western Washington	G	5-10	Jr.	Everson, Wash. (Lynden Christian)
Stephanie Peterson	Western Washington	G	5-10	Sr.	Broomfield, Colo. (Cameron)

 
*-Unanimous Selection
&-2022-23 GNAC Freshman of the Year
+-2022-23 GNAC Newcomer of the Year
!-2022-23 First Team All-GNAC
%-2022-23 Second Team All-GNAC
@-2022-23 Honorable Mention All-GNAC
^-2021-22 GNAC Freshman of the Year #-2021-22 Second Team All-GNAC
$-2021-22 Honorable Mention All-GNAC