THE SCHEDULE
Thursday, Feb. 13                Northwest Nazarene at Seattle Pacific 5:15 p.m.
                                                Brougham Pavilion (2.650) / Seattle, Wash.
                                                Live Webcast        Live stats
 
Saturday, Feh. 15                Central Washington at Seattle Pacific, 4:15 p.m.
                                                Brougham Pavilion / Seattle, Wash.
                                                Live Webcast        Live stats
 
 
SEATTLE – The home stretch starts at home for the Seattle Pacific Falcons.
 
With six games left in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference women's basketball season, SPU has four of those at home. The first two are this week when Northwest Nazarene visits on Thursday at 5:15 p.m. and Central Washington is in town on Saturday at 4:15 p.m.
 
Both of those will be part of doubleheaders. The Seattle Pacific men face NNU on Thursday at 7:30 and Central at 2:00 on Saturday.
 
The Falcons (6-19, 0-12 GNAC) are coming off a tough road trip last week, as they came up short at Western Oregon on Thursday, 58-53, and at Saint Martin's on Saturday, 78-63.
 
FOLLOW IT LIVE
This week's games and all remaining GNAC contests will have free live Webcasts on YouTube and free live stats. Greg Sexton will call the action for both of this week's games. The appropriate links are at the top of this page.

 

 
















SO WHAT'S THE STORY THIS WEEK?
-- The Falcons are looking to snap a 10-game losing streak.
-- Three former SPU assistant coaches will be in Brougham Pavilion this week as head coaches. One of those, of course, is the Falcons' own Karen Byers, now in her first year at the helm. Steve Steele is in his ninth year at Northwest Nazarene. Randi Richardson is in her eighth at Central Washington.
-- The week will be a rematch against both teams. Central won 88-65 in Ellensburg on Jan. 16, and NNU wiped out a 17-point first-half deficit and hung on for an 88-84 victory in Nampa on Jan. 18.
-- At NNU, Seattle Pacific put up 35 points in the first quarter – more than half of their scoring average. The Falcons shot 14 of 18 from the field, with 3 of 4 from behind the arc.
-- That was the team's first quarter of 30 or more points since Jan. 23, 2018.
-- Fifth-year point guard Hunter Beirne had 26 points for SPU in that game, with 21 from downtown. The Falcons were 12 of 23 behind the arc for a season-high 52.2 percent.
-- That performance for Beirne came just two nights after she poured in a career-high 30 at Central, hitting 14 of 23 to go along with five assists and four rebounds.
-- Beirne surpassed 800 career points with a 17-point outing last Thursday at Western Oregon. Along with the 11 she scored on Saturday at Saint Martin's, she now has 817.
-- The Nighthawks force an average of 21 turnovers per game, with an average 11 of those coming on steals. Last month in Nampa, Seattle Pacific had 34 turnovers, which NNU converted into 22 points.
-- Beau Bruegman came off the bench to tally 20 points for Northwest Nazarene. She was one of four Nighthawks in double figures.
-- Central Washington had a pair of 20-point efforts against the Falcons in January: 23 for Asher Cai and 22 for Sunny Huerta.
-- The Falcons went with two bigs in the starting five last Saturday at Saint Martin's. 6-foot-3 junior center Emilia Bishop and 6-1 forward Madison Rubino. They combined for 16 points and 11 rebounds. Bishop got her third straight start and Rubino had her first since Jan. 23 against Alaska Anchorage. She has started 14 of her 23 games.
--SPU beat both of these teams last year in Seattle: 76-65 against the Wildcats and 73-71 against the Nighthawks on Layne Kearns' dramatic reverse lay-in with 1.8 seconds left.

SCOUTING THE NORTHWEST NAZARENE NIGHTHAWKS: 14-8, 8-5 GNAC (5th)
All-time series: SPU leads, 34-29.  Current series streak: NNU won 1.  Last time: NNU 88, SPU 84 (Jan. 18 at Nampa, Idaho  Last SPU series win: SPU 73, NNU 71 (Feb. 3, 2024 at Seattle).  Nighthawks on the Web.
Nighthawks in a nutshell: Northwest Nazarene started 2025 with a six-game winning streak, but has taken just two of its last five. That included a split last week with a 90-82 win at Simon Fraser and a 67-64 loss at Western Washington. Sophomore 5-foot-10 guard / forward Kendall Clark is an all-around force for NNU with team-leading marks of 16.1 points (No. 4 in the GNAC), 7.5 rebounds (No. 3), and .581 field goal shooting (No. 1). Of her 157 rebounds, 62 (2.95 per game) come at the offensive end. She missed the SPU game last month in Nampa with a minor injury. Madeline Gebers, a senior 6-foot guard / forward, averages 11.0 points, 4.5 rebounds and has a team-high 12 blocked shots. Loy Waid, a senior 6-foot forward, delivered a season-high 18 points on 7-of-14 shooting, plus eight rebounds against the Falcons in January.
 
SCOUTING THE CENTRAL WASHINGTON WILDCATS: 17-5, 10-3 GNAC (3rd)
All-time series: SPU leads, 52-39.  Current series streak: CWU won 1.  Last time: CWU 88, SPU 65 (Jan. 16, at Ellensburg).  Last SPU series win: SPU 76, CWU 65 (Feb 1, 2024 at Seattle).  Wildcats on the Web.
Wildcats in a nutshell: After a stretch of four losses in seven games, Central Washington has won seven of eight, including the last three in a row. The Wildcats beat both Western Washington and Simon Fraser in Ellensburg last week and have secured a spot in the GNAC Tournament. Senior 5-foot-4 guard Sunny Huerta and junior 5-9 guard Asher Cai rank 2-3 in GNAC scoring at 18.9 and 18.1 points, respectively. Huerta is the conference's leading 3-point shooter at .451 (46 of 102). She's also No. 11 in overall shooting at .460. Sophomore 6-foot forward Capri Sims averages 8.9 points on .522 shooting, and is the team's leading rebounder at 8.1 per game. She also has 19 blocked shots. The Wildcats are the GNAC's top-shooting team at .468, and hit .531 in January's game against SPU (34 of 64).
 
A DOUBLE-DIGIT HELPING HAND
By herself, last Saturday's game at Saint Martin's wasn't one of Hunter Beirne's higher-scoring performances of the season. But by the time everything was done, she'd had a hand in more than half of SPU's offensive output against the Saints.
 
 

Along with the 11 points she scored, the fifth-year point guard factored into 24 more with a career-high 10 assists. Of those, six went for 2-point baskets, and four went for 3-pointers. And it wasn't just one player on the receiving end of those passes. Three each went to Grace Turley and Madison Rubino; two each went to Lolo Weatherspoon and Layne Kearns.
 
Beirne became the first Falcon with double-digit assists since Abril Rexach Roure dished 11 on Feb. 5, 2021 – which just happened to be another game at Saint Martin's.
 
She is now up to 94 assists for the year. Her single-season best is 95 in 2022-23. Her average is up to 3.8 per game, tied for No. 5 in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference. The last Falcons with more than 100 assists in a season was Suzanna Ohlson with 110 in 2014-15.
 
DOUBLE-DOUBLE DELIGHTS
Hunter Beirne's 11 points and 10 helpers last Saturday went into the books as her first college double-double.
 
That made it three double-doubles in a span of three weeks for the Falcons.
 
 

Junior center Emilia Bishop logged one with career highs of 27 points and 15 rebounds on Jan. 25 at home against Alaska Fairbanks. Junior forward Madison Rubino recorded her first one in an SPU uniform last Thursday at Western Oregon with 12 points and 14 rebounds, the latter of which tied her career high. Rubino had three double-doubles last year while playing for Cal Poly Humboldt.
 
Prior to all of that, the last double-double for the Falcons had been 15 points and 14 rebounds by Olivia Mayer last March 2 in the regular-season finale at Alaska Fairbanks.
 
HEAD OF THE CLASS
Seattle Pacific placed seven players on the GNAC All-Academic team that was announced last Wednesday.
 
Hunter Beirne made it for the fourth time, the first Falcon ever to do that. Normally, that honor can be earned as a sophomore, junior, and senior. However, Beirne was one of many athletes nationwide who was granted an extra year of eligibility by the NCAA because of the pandemic shutdown in 2020-21, thereby earning a fourth All-Academic opportunity.
 
Senior center Schuyler Berry and senior wing Lolo Weatherspoon are both third-time honorees. Junior center Emilia Bishop is a second-timer, while sophomore guards Layne Kearns and Haylie-Anne Ohta and sophomore wing Grace Leasure are first-timers.
 
FALCONS REPLAY
-- Hunter Beirne scored 17 points, including the 800th of her career, Madison Rubino logged her first Seattle Pacific double-double, and the Falcons limited Western Oregon to just 27.9 percent shooting, but still dropped a 58-53 decision to the Wolves on Thursday.
-- Beirne recorded a double-double of 11 points and a career-high 10 assists, and redshirt freshman Grace Turley matched her career high with 14 points, but Saint Martin's hung onto at least a three-possession lead through the final few minutes for a 78-63 victory last Saturday in Lacey.
 
MARCH TO A MILESTONE
In the making
100th steal     Hunter Beirne has 86
200th point     Grace Leasure has 196
                Haylie-Anne Ohta has 170
200th rebound   Lolo Weatherspoon has 174
400th rebound   Hunter Beirne has 373
500th point     Lolo Weatherspoon has 484
 
Made last week
800th point     Hunter Beirne has 817
 
AROUND THE WEST
The GNAC now has half of its six postseason tournament spots filled as three teams clinched spots last week. Alaska Anchorage (20-3, 11-1) remains atop the conference, one game ahead of Montana State Billings (21-4, 10-2), They're both in, as is Central Washington (17-5, 10-3), currently sitting in third place. That leaves three spots yet to fill. Western Washington (14-8, 9-4) and Northwest Nazarene (14-8, 8-5) are both close. The sixth and final berth is up for grabs, with Saint Martin's (13-8, 6-7), currently having a two-game lead on Simon Fraser and Western Oregon, both of whom are 4-9 on conference play.
 
Cal State Dominguez Hills is now very much on the inside track to the California Collegiate Athletic Association title. The Toros (24-0, 16-0 CCAA) haven't officially clinched it, but did beat second-place Cal Poly Pomona last Saturday. 78-68. That gave them a season sweep against the Broncos (18-4, 13-3) and a three-game lead with six to play. Pomona remains one game ahead of third-place Chico State (17-5, 12-4).
 
Point Loma Nazarene has taken over sole possession of first place in the Pacific West Conference. The Sea Lions (18-5, 13-2) have won four straight and are now half a game in front of Azusa Pacific (19-4, 13-3). Last Saturday, the Cougars dropped a 67-52 decision to third-place Vanguard (14-7, 12-3). That leaves those three schools within one game of the top spot with three weeks left in the regular season. Point Loma and Azusa have secured spots in the Pac West Tournament.
 
UP NEXT
The Falcons take their final road trip of the season next week when they head north to Alaska. They visit Fairbanks on Thursday, Feb. 20, and Anchorage on Saturday, Feb. 22. Both games tip off at 6:15 p.m. Pacific time.
 
 
 
GNAC STANDINGS
                                                     GNAC        Overall
Alaska Anchorage         11-1     20-3
Montana State Billings   10-2     21-4
Central Washington       10-3     17-5
Western Washington        9-4     14-8
Northwest Nazarene        8-5     14-8
Saint Martin's            6-7     13-8
Simon Fraser              4-9     11-11
Western Oregon            4-9      8-13
Alaska Fairbanks          1-11     6-14
Seattle Pacific           0-12     6-19
 

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