ANCHORAGE ? Senior Chris Bryant recorded his first career double-double and McCade Olsen scored four points in the last 16 seconds to lead nationally 14th-ranked Alaska Anchorage to 63-62 win over Western Washington at the Wells Fargo Sports Complex on Saturday night.
UAA (14-3, 5-0 GNAC) also got 17 points from senior Carl Arts as it won its 12th straight game and stayed perfect against Division II competition this season.
WWU (10-5, 3-3) was led by a tremendous performance off the bench by junior guard Derrick Webb, who scored 27 points in 25 minutes, going 10 of 14 from the floor and 5 of 7 on three-pointers.
The game was tight throughout, with UAA's 43-36 advantage at the 14-minute mark being the largest cushion for either team.
With 8 minutes left, Webb launched a deep three-pointer that went in and drew a foul from UAA's Cameron Burney. He converted the free throw to put the Vikings up 49-48, but that would be the visitors' only lead of the second half as Bryant swished his third three-pointer at the 7:40 mark.
Bryant, 6-3 guard from Metlakatla, finished with 17 points (5-13 FG, 3-6 3FG, 4-5 FT), a career-high 10 rebounds and two assists.
The teams battled for the next several minutes as the lead bounced between two and four points for UAA. With just over 2 minutes remaining, Webb drove the lane and drew a foul from Bryant to convert a traditional three-point play, making it 57-56.
Arts (17 pts, 6-13 FG, 5-5 FT, 7 reb) answered with a short jumper on UAA's next possession, and the Seawolves dodged a couple of bullets when WWU layup attempts barely rolled off the rim on the next two defensive possessions.
Then, leading 59-56, the Seawolves ran down the shot clock and Luke Cooper (6 assists, 0 turnovers) found Olsen on the baseline for a soft jumper with 16 seconds left. Webb showed his range again, however, nailing a wide-open trey with 6.6 seconds showing, and the Vikings fouled Olsen (14 pts, 6-13 FG, 6 reb) on the inbounds pass.
The senior from Riverton, Utah, calmly stepped to the line with 5.1 ticks left and drained two free throws, both of which would be needed as Webb swished a double-pump-from-the-shoulder trey at the buzzer for the final margin.
The Seawolves were slightly outshot overall and from the three-point arc, but UAA converted 13 of 18 free throws compared to WWU's 7 of 13. UAA also committed just nine turnovers and managed a 33-31 rebound advantage after losing the battle of the boards most of the night.
Despite Webb's big night, the Seawolves did an excellent defensive job on WWU guard Ira Graham, holding his to just seven points on 2-of-8 shooting. The Vikings' star had been a league-best 21.4 points before Saturday's encounter.
With 24th-ranked Seattle Pacific losing at Northwest Nazarene earlier Saturday, the Seawolves took a 2-game advantage over the rest of the Great Northwest Athletic Conference in the loss column.
Following three straight home wins, UAA takes to the road next week to battle defending league champ Seattle University (Thur., Jan. 24, 6 p.m. AST) and Montana State Billings (Sat., Jan. 26, 5 p.m.).
NOTES: UAA's 12-game win streak now stands alone as the second-longest streak in school history, behind only the 14 consecutive victories of the 1985-86 team.
Bryant became the fifth different Seawolf to earn a double-double this sesason, joining Arts, Cooper, Olsen and Jeremiah Trueman.
