After a successful sweep of their final home-stand of the season, the SFU women’s basketball team couldn’t keep their momentum going in Alaska. The Clan dropped an 87–71 decision to the Alaska Anchorage Seawolves in their first of three road games to close out the regular season.
Things got away from the Clan early. Just five minutes into the game, SFU was down 9–2 and had already turned the ball over eight times. After falling down 19–10 midway through the half, the Clan would rally to cut the lead to five, but that’s as close as they would get. The Seawolves pulled away and led 39–25 after the opening 20, aided by SFU’s 16 first-half turnovers.
It was a sloppy game through and through for SFU.
“We got outrebounded 43–30,” said head coach Bruce Langford after the contest. “We allowed them to have 27 offensive rebounds which was basically the story of the game, [as well as] 25 turnovers on our part.”
SFU never quit, though; the second half was a much better performance than the team’s effort in the first. The girls shot just 33 per cent in the first, but 58 per cent in the second. SFU made three straight three-pointers on three straight possessions, making the score 53–46 UAA midway through the second. Another 10–0 run later in the game would pull the Clan within eight, 70–62, with about eight minutes to play.
But every time the Clan inched back, messy play mired the comeback efforts and allowed the Seawolves to pull further away each time, and ultimately meant a loss by a disheartening 16 points. With just two games to play in the ultra-tight Great Northwest Athletic Conference, SFU will have to move on from the disappointing effort quickly.
The loss drops the team’s record to 11–5 within the conference, still comfortably in third place, but they’ll need to work out the kinks with playoffs just around the corner.
