ANCHORAGE - Playing in their final home games, seniors Taylor Rohde, Steve White and Lonnie Ridgeway all produced big numbers Saturday to lead 21st-ranked Alaska Anchorage to an 83-70 victory over Western Oregon in a battle of regionally ranked men's basketball clubs at the Wells Fargo Sports Complex.
The Seawolves (20-5, 14-3 GNAC), No. 2 in the West Region, got a game-high 25 points from Rohde as they erased a five-point halftime deficit and swept the season series from WOU.
The Wolves (17-8, 10-6), No. 5 in the West, were led by 22 points and three assists from senior guard Blair Wheadon but fell to the Seawolves for the ninth time in their last 10 meetings.
With the victory, UAA clinches no worse than a tie for second place in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference standings and climbs within half a game of regionally top-ranked Western Washington (14-2 GNAC) for the league lead. The Seawolves need to win at Alaska Fairbanks in their regular-season finale on Thursday and hope for one or two losses by the Vikings in their final two games in order to share or claim the title outright.
Despite the final margin, Saturday's game was in doubt until the final few minutes. In a back-and-forth first half, the Wolves ended with a 7-0 run to take a 35-30 lead into the locker room.
UAA sophomore Kyle Fossman nailed one of his three three-pointers to start the second half, however, and the hosts took the lead, 38-37, on a Rohde layup with 17:46 remaining. Tied at 41 a few minutes later, White found Fossman for an open jumper and Travis Thompson penetrated for a layup to give the Seawolves the lead for good.
The Wolves cut it to a one-point game on three straight possessions, pulling within 57-56 at the 7:40 mark, before UAA ended all doubt with a 13-0 surge. Ridgeway nailed short jumper and White beat the shot shot-clock buzzer with a running, baseline floater to start the run, and Abebe Demissie provided the backbreaker with an NBA-range trey to beat the shot clock again, making it 66-56 with 4:07 left.
Rohde finished with his 12th straight shooting effort of 50 percent or better, connecting on 8 of 12 from the field and 9 of 10 at the free-throw line. The GNAC's leading scorer also grabbed eight rebounds as he claimed his 14th career game of 25 points or more.
Meanwhile, White finished with a career-high 12 assists in his 110th appearance as a Seawolf. With 320 career assists, the Aussie is now just one shy of No. 5 on UAA's all-time list.
Ridgeway, the team's other fourth-year senior, produced double-figure scoring for the third straight game, tallying 16 points on 7-of-11 shooting. The former Heritage Christian High School star also grabbed a game-high nine rebounds and electrified the home crowd with a pair of dunks.
Fossman finished with 17 points, two assists and no turnovers in 35 minutes, while Demissie added 10 points (4-6 FG, 2-2 3FG), three assists and no turnovers. Boosted by Ridgeway and Demissie, the Seawolves' bench outscored its counterparts 30-6.
The Seawolves finished their Wells Fargo Sports Complex season with a 13-1 record to account for the second-best mark in the past 15 years; UAA went 18-0 at the WFSC in its Final Four season of 2007-08. The victory also gives UAA the 13th 20-win season in the 35-year history of the program, and it marks the first such back-to-back campaigns since doing it three straight years from 1991-92 through 1993-94.
UAA concludes its regular season Thursday at UAF (7 p.m. AST) before traveling to Lacey, Wash., for the GNAC postseason tournament, Feb. 29-Mar. 3. The Seawolves have clinched one of the top three seeds for six-team tourney, which features first-round byes for the top two seeds.
Following the GNAC Tournament, the Seawolves will await the announcement of the NCAA Division II West Regional Championships pairings on Sunday, Mar. 4. Those playoffs will be held Mar. 9-12 at a site to be determined.
