ANCHORAGE ? Seniors Carl Arts, McCade Olsen and Luke Cooper all posted double-doubles Thursday to lead the 5th-ranked Alaska Anchorage men's basketball team to its school-record 15th straight victory, 83-71 over 24th-ranked Seattle Pacific.
UAA (17-3, 8-0 GNAC) got a career-high 29 points and 13 rebounds from Arts as the Seawolves prevailed in the first match-up of top-25 teams at the Wells Fargo Sports Complex since January 1998.
SPU (13-4, 5-3) was led by 15 points on 6-of-7 shooting from reserve guard Casey Reed, but the Falcons starters were outscored 81-35 by their counterparts, and UAA won the rebounding battle 40-21.
Arts (6-14 FG, 16-19 FT) scored a put-back bucket in the final seconds of the first half to give UAA a 35-33 lead at intermission in the tussle between the teams ranked No. 1 in No. 4 in the initial NCAA Div. II West Region poll.
The Seawolves then took control with a 13-0 run early in the second half to stretch to a 50-36 advantage.
The Falcons answered with a 10-2 run of their own to cut UAA's lead to six with 10 minutes left, but that was as close as the visitors would come. Olsen, who later left the game with a sprained ankle, converted a traditional three-point play at the 7:51 mark to give UAA a permanent double-digit lead at 62-50.
Olsen scored 25 points, sinking a team season-best 11 field goals, and grabbed 11 rebounds. Meanwhile, Cooper improved on his Div. II-leading average of 8.4 assists with 11 dishes. The Aussie point guard also earned his first double-double of the Great Northwest Athletic Conference season by adding 12 points.
Senior guard Chris Bryant battled through foul trouble to net 13 points (4-9 FG, 4-5 FT), while junior forward Cameron Burney blocked a UAA season-best four shots.
SPU leading scorer Marques Echols, who entered with a 16.7-point averaged, was held to nine points on 4-of-6 shooting. The Falcons also suffered a loss when third-leading scorer Rob Diederichs (13.5 ppg) left the game early after an unspecified lower-leg injury.
For Arts it was his 13th career double-double, tying his for sixth-most ever by a Seawolf, while the Valdez native's 16 free throws came one shy of tying Jeff Martin's school record, set in the 1983 Great Alaska Shootout against Fordham.
The 15 straight wins surpasses UAA's 1985-86 squad for the school record, while it ties SPU's 2001-02 team and Western Washington's 2005-06 squad for the most consecutive victories by a GNAC club.
UAA gets another stiff test Saturday when it hosts 23rd-ranked Northwest Nazarene (14-3, 6-2) at 7 p.m. at the WFSC. The Crusaders moved into second place all alone behind UAA after winning at Alaska Fairbanks and having SPU and Central Washington both lose Thursday.
