Seattle Pacific women’s basketball had a rough start to the holiday weekend, but they salvaged it with a last-stretch win on Saturday, Nov. 30.
The Falcons hosted the Metropolitan State University of Denver and Colorado Christian University in the SPU Thanksgiving Tournament at Royal Brougham Pavilion. Seattle Pacific lost 57-56 to Metro State on Friday, Nov. 29, but ended the weekend with a comeback win against Colorado Christian 64-54 on Saturday.
Seattle Pacific held the lead for nine minutes, 40 seconds in the first half against Metro State. A tie-breaking free throw from junior guard Layne Kearns pulled the Falcons ahead of Metro State in the seventh minute. Metro State regained the lead in the 16th minute, leading 26-23 at halftime.
There was a back-and-forth battle for much of the second half until Metro State sank a three-pointer with two seconds on the clock, and Seattle Pacific was unable to respond. Kearns and fifth-year guard Hunter Beirne were the top scorers with 14 points each. Junior forward Madison Rubino was the next-best with seven points.
On Saturday, Seattle Pacific initially led Colorado Christian 18-10 thanks to a buzzer-beater from Beirne at the end of the first quarter. Colorado Christian limited the Falcons to nine points in the second quarter and closed the gap at 27-26.
The Falcons lost the lead in the third quarter. It seemed as if the Cougars were set for a win until a 52-52 tie in the 35th minute broke in SPU’s favor. An explosive 12-2 scoring run secured the Falcons their second win of the season.
Kearns led in scoring again with a career-high 18 points. Sophomore wing Grace Leasure and senior wing Lolo Weatherspoon followed with 10 and eight points respectively.
“We’re all a bit frustrated, so coming out today, [Coach Byers] lit a fire under us,” Kearns said. “We just really wanted this for each other, and we all rallied during that fourth quarter. It’s great coming off this game, so hopefully, we can carry this same team into the conference.”
Vying for the win, interim head coach Karen Byers challenged her team to play better.
“[In] our second quarter, we scored nine, which is not what we’re looking for. I [told] the team, ‘Never again will we have a single-digit quarter,’” Byers said. “We had to make some adjustments, and I told the team at the beginning of the day that we were going to hunt for the win, and however the game went, I was going to play the ones that would get the win for us.”
Seattle Pacific begins conference play against Simon Fraser University on Thursday, Dec. 5, at 5:15 p.m. in Burnaby, British Columbia.
