Playing a team that dominated them twice in the regular season, Western Washington’s third time held no charm, losing to Alaska Anchorage, 67-38, in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference Women’s Basketball Championships semifinal at Marcus Pavilion in Lacey Friday evening.
The defeat almost certainly ends the Vikings’ season, with little hope for an at-large bid in the eight-team NCAA Division II West Region due to Western’s No. 10 region ranking. Western understood it would almost certainly have to win the tournament to earn an automatic bid, a difficult task against the GNAC’s top team.
“UAA is long and athletic,” Western coach Carmen Dolfo said. “They pressured us full court for 40 minutes. We didn’t do a great job in moving the ball, cutting hard and finding the open person.”
Western held the conference-scoring leaders well under their 80.5 point per game average, but it was little comfort as WWU shot just 23.5% from the field and managed to make just three of 20 3-pointers. The Seawolves, with the nation’s leading ball thief in Emilia Long (4.3 steals per game coming into the tournament), forced an uncommon 20 Western turnovers, culminating in 25 points. Alaska Anchorage held an 11-1 margin in steals.
The game featured the fewest points allowed in GNAC women’s tournament history. It was the Vikings’ lowest-scoring output of the season and their second-worst losing margin — both of which came to the same Seawolves team in a 72-40 loss Feb. 13 in Bellingham.
“They are a great team but we did not bring it tonight,” Dolfo said.
Alaska Anchorage faces No. 6 seed and host Saint Martin’s in Saturday’s final.
Alaska Anchorage, ranked No. 20 nationally and No. 3 in the West Region, jumped to an early lead, going up 21-5 with about eight minutes left in the first half as Western started cold. The Seawolves never trailed in the game. Coming out of a 35-16 deficit at the half, Western seemed poised for a run in the first few minutes of the second half but the Seawolves used their height advantage and defensive prowess to go on a 13-5 run, extending the lead to 52-27 entering the fourth quarter.
Sophomore guard Demi Dykstra led the Vikings (18-10 overall, 12-7 conference) with 15 points, and senior Maddy Grandbois, likely playing in her last game at Western, scored 7. Anchorage held Western’s top two scorers, senior first-team all-conference player Olivia Wikstrom and junior Alyson Deaver, to 5 and 4 points, respectively. Long led the Seawolves with 15 points and Tori Hollingshead had 13.
The Seawolves (26-4 overall, 17-2 conference) advanced to the GNAC title game for the eighth time and led the conference in scoring and scoring defense in seeking their league-leading seventh GNAC title.
Still, the early ouster was uncommon for the tournament’s No. 4 seed Vikings, the two-time defending GNAC tournament champions and usually the cream of the GNAC crop. Western, a perennial 20-win-per-season team, has made the NCAA Division II tournament field in 20 of the past 25 seasons and reached the 2022 NCAA Division II national championship game.
In some ways, though, Western reaching the GNAC semifinals can be considered an impressive feat — the team lost three key incoming players to injury before the season even began and struggled with nagging injuries to its overworked starting five and bench players.
Meri-Jo Borzilleri is a freelance journalist and former 20-year sports reporter.
