ANCHORAGE - Haley Holmstead scored 27 points and Hanna Johansson posted a monster double-double Saturday as 9th-ranked Alaska Anchorage pulled away for an 82-59 victory over rival Seattle Pacific in a Great Northwest Athletic Conference women's basketball showdown at the Wells Fargo Sports Complex.
The Seawolves (14-2, 5-0 GNAC) got 22 points and 18 rebounds from Johansson, and junior forward Alysa Horn scored 13 of her 15 points in the first half as UAA won its 10th straight and remained the only unbeaten team in league play.
The Falcons (10-4, 4-2) were led by 15 points apiece from center Katie Benson and reserve guard Betsy Kingma, but the visitors were outshot 48 percent to 31 percent and outrebounded 46-35.
UAA's margin of victory was easily its largest in 50 all-time meetings against the Falcons (SPU now leads the series 33-17), topping a 71-55 home win on Nov. 30, 1982.
Despite never taking the lead, the Falcons hung tight early, tying the game three times in the first 13 minutes. Knotted at 21-21, Horn put UAA ahead for good with a pull-up three-pointer that led to a 16-6 Seawolf run.
UAA took a 37-29 edge at halftime and slowly stretched its lead throughout the second stanza. Aubree Callen's corner three-pointer pulled SPU within 59-50 at the 9:43 mark before Horn and Johansson answered with successive short jumpers, and the Seawolves would remain in control.
Holmstead, who had six points on 3-of-10 shooting in the first half, was nearly unstoppable in the second, making 9 of 12 and grabbing four of her five rebounds. The Salt Lake CC transfer topped her previous team season-high of 26 points (Dec. 10 vs. Academy of Art) by one point.
Johansson, meanwhile, was a force in the post with her fourth straight double-double. The Swede's 18 rebounds tied for the eighth-most ever by a Seawolf and was the highest total since Rebecca Kielpinski had 21 against Western Oregon on Feb. 1, 2007. The 6-2 center also finished with four assists and a pair of blocks.
Two nights after committing a season-low 14 turnovers in a 59-50 win over Montana State Billings, the Seawolves were even better, committing just nine giveaways to tie for the 7th-lowest total in program history.
Freshman point guard Gritt Ryder and senior forward Tijera Mathews both had five assists and no turnovers for UAA, and senior point guard Sasha King dished a career-high seven assists. King, Kaylie Robison and Holmstead tallied three steals apiece as UAA out-swiped SPU 14-6.
Mathews and King finished with seven points apiece, while Horn's 15 points marked the fourth straight game in double figures for the Kodiak product.
The Seawolves return to the road next week with key GNAC encounters against Simon Fraser (Thur., Jan. 12) in Burnaby, British Columbia, and against Western Washington (Sat., Jan. 14) in Bellingham, Wash. Both games begin at 6 p.m. AST.
