ANCHORAGE ? Tamar Gruwell drilled the eventual game-winning three-pointer with 1 minute left Saturday as the 2nd-ranked Alaska Anchorage women's basketball team completed a stirring comeback to knock off 14th-ranked Seattle Pacific, 53-49, in a battle for the early edge in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference race.
Junior forward Nicci Miller scored 15 points for UAA (18-1, 5-0 GNAC), which claimed a school-record 16th straight win.
Seattle Pacific (12-3, 5-1) was led by 16 points from sharp-shooting guard Kelsey Burns and 10 points and 10 rebounds from senior center Kelsey Hill as the Falcons lost for the first time this year to a fellow Division II team.
Saturday's showdown pitted the teams picked to finish first (UAA) and second in the GNAC preseason coaches' poll, and was a rematch of the 2008 NCAA Div. II West Regional championship game, won 50-44 by UAA last March.
The second-largest women's crowd in Wells Fargo Sports Complex history ? 856 ? was quiet for most of the night, however, as the Falcons jumped on the Seawolves for early leads of 11-2 and 26-10.
The Seawolves crept within 30-20 at halftime on the strength of two Dasha Basova three-pointers, before SPU pushed its lead back to 16 when it drilled a pair of treys to start the second half.
But Miller would tally the next five points to start a 9-0 Seawolf run, and guard Jackie Thiel ? who came in as the nation's leading three-point percentage shooter (.597) ? drained a trey with 9:17 left to pull within 40-37 and fire up the seemingly capacity crowd.
UAA senior forward Ruby Williams scored on a pair of slippery inside moves to make it 42-41, and Miller forged the first tie of the night with a three-pointer from the corner at the 4:07 mark.
Knotted at 46-46, Miller scored a layup on a feed from Williams with 1:42 left to give UAA its first lead. It wouldn't last long, however, as SPU guard Maddie Maddie Maloney answered with a three-pointer ? her only basket in five attempts ? to make it 49-48 for SPU.
After a UAA timeout, Thiel dished to Gruwell at the three-point elbow, and the junior from Fairfield, Calif., knocked down her only field goal of the game, quickly erasing the memory of five long-range misses.
After an SPU miss, Kielpinski missed the front end of a one-and-one, allowing the visitors another chance to tie or win. But Maloney couldn't connect on a midrange jumper and Daesha Henderson missed a putback attempt, allowing Thiel to grab the rebound with 8.3 seconds showing.
Thiel then completed a heroic effort with the game-clinching free throws, finishing a performance that included eight points (2-2 3FG, 2-2 FT), five rebounds, six assists, three steals and no turnovers in 30 minutes.
Gruwell grabbed a clutch five rebounds, dished three assists and matched UAA's season-high with four steals, while Kielpinski finished with a game-high 11 rebounds.
The 10-point halftime comeback matched the third-largest in program history, while Saturday's attendance was No. 2 only to the 960 who came out to watch the 1990 Northern Lights Invitational championship game against Div. I South Alabama.
UAA pushed its home-court winning streak to 17 games and has now won 45 of 46 in Anchorage under third-year coach Tim Moser. That one loss came 78-77 against SPU last February.
Saturday's victory also means the Seawolves will likely assume their first-ever No. 1 ranking when the WBCA Div. II Top 25 coaches' poll comes out Tuesday, following top-ranked Northern Kentucky's 66-57 home defeat to Quincy (Ill.) earlier in the evening.
The Seawolves play the third of five straight home games when they host Western Oregon on Thursday, Jan. 29, at the WFSC. Tip-off is set for 7 p.m. AST.
