SEATTLE – Guards
Jazzpher Evans and
Rachel Ingram scored 11 points apiece and 19th-ranked Alaska Anchorage closed the game with an 18-4 run Sunday for a 69-61 women's basketball victory over Seattle Pacific at Brougham Pavilion.
The Seawolves (12-4, 5-3 Great Northwest Athletic Conference) also got eight points, six rebounds and two steals from senior center
Tennae Voliva as they completed a weekend road sweep and earned their sixth straight win in the series.
The Falcons (8-10, 4-4) were led by 21 points from reserve guard Anna Eddy, but the hosts could not protect leads of 26-13 midway through the second quarter and 37-28 at halftime, and were hurt by 21 turnovers.
"This is the proudest I have been of this group all season," said UAA head coach
Ryan McCarthy, whose team earned the program's largest halftime comeback since erasing another nine-point deficit against SPU on Jan. 19, 2017. "We were not executing defensively and got way down in the first, but our ladies kept their heads up and responded the way you hope to see as a coaching staff. They doubled their effort on both ends of the court and everyone made clutch plays down the stretch to put it out of reach, including hitting our free throws at the end."
After fending off multiple SPU rallies in a 60-58 overtime win Saturday, the Seawolves were forced to flip the script in the rematch, which was played due to the teams' Dec. 30 game in Anchorage being postponed by virus concerns.
UAA trailed 22-11 after the first quarter – marking its second-largest such deficit since women's college basketball went to the quarter system in 2015-16 – and 50-40 when Eddy nailed one of her five three-pointers at the 4:31 mark of the third.
Ingram and backcourt mate
Jahnna Hajdukovich would answer with back-to-back three-pointers for UAA, and
Nicole Pinckney's pull-up jumper made it a 52-48 score with 10 minutes remaining.
The Falcons led 57-51 with just over six minutes left, but the hosts were held without a field goal the rest of the way, seeing the Seawolves tie it 59-59 on consecutive layups by
Sala Langi. Voliva converted a short jumper with 2:47 left to give UAA its first lead since the opening minutes, and
Lauren Johnson doubled the lead with two free throws at the 2-minute mark.
SPU committed turnovers on its next two possessions, including a steal by Voliva with 43 seconds left, as the Seawolves sealed the game by making eight of 10 free throws in the final two minutes.
Coming off a seven second-half three-pointers on Thursday at Montana State Billings and three treys in Saturday's win over SPU, Ingram shot 3 of 6 from long range, with all three makes coming after halftime.
A transfer from Quincy (Ill.) University, Evans posted her best scoring effort in a GNAC game with 4-of-7 shooting, including 2 of 2 on treys. She Chicago native also had four rebounds, two assists and two of UAA's 12 steals.
Langi finished with eight points on 3-of-6 shooting and Johnson had eight points, making all four of her free throws.
Junior
Kimani Fernandez and senior
Stephanie Jackson led the Seawolves with three steals apiece, and UAA got at least two points from all 11 players in the lineup.
The Seawolves return to the Alaska Airlines Center for two games this week, starting with a Thursday 7:30 p.m. showdown against fellow regionally ranked club Northwest Nazarene. Surf to GoSeawolves.com for tickets.