CWU Women’s Basketball finished their regular season last weekend with a win over Seattle Pacific University (SPU). CWU finished the regular season on a four-game winning streak and finished 13-7 overall in GNAC games.

CWU defeated SPU with a final score of 81-65 in Seattle on Feb. 29. CWU came out of the gates strong, opening with a 24 point first quarter. CWU led SPU 47-31 going into the halftime break.

The second half was relatively close, with CWU scoring 19 points in the third quarter to SPU’s 18 points and the two teams tied on the fourth quarter box score, each putting up 16 points in the final quarter of the game.

“I hope we can gain some confidence come these last couple of weeks and take that into the conference tournament next week,” CWU Women’s Basketball head coach Randi Richardson-Thornley said in an interview with Wildcatsports.com after the win.

Senior guard Alexis Pana led CWU in points in her final regular season game as a Wildcat. She finished the night with 20 points, shooting 56.3% from the field. Pana also had eight rebounds and five assists.

Senior forward Kaelie Flores shot 66.7% from the field and ended her last regular season game with 16 points to go along with three rebounds, two assists and a block.

Junior forward Kassidy Malcolm, senior forward Taylor Shaw and senior forward Jonnae Richardson all scored double digits on the night, with Malcolm and Shaw scoring 11 points and Richardson scoring 10 points. 

As a team, CWU shot 47.8% on three pointers, as opposed to SPU’s 31.3% performance from beyond the arc.

With the win, CWU enters the postseason as the fifth seeded team in the GNAC Women’s Basketball Championship tournament. The other teams in order from first to sixth are University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA), Northwest Nazarene University (NNU), Western Washington University (WWU), Simon Fraser University (SFU) and Montana State University Billings (MSUB).

UAA and NNU will get a first round bye, while WWU takes on MSUB and CWU takes on SFU.

CWU split the regular season series with SFU, 1-1. In their first matchup, in Ellensburg, SFU won 65-59 and in their second matchup, in Burnaby, B.C., CWU took the win with a final score of 83-74.

The winner of CWU and SFU will take on UAA, the number one team in the GNAC. UAA are favorites to win the tournament, as they have not lost a game since Jan. 23 and finished 19-1 in conference play.

CWU played UAA at home on Feb. 8 for their second matchup of the season after losing earlier in the season to them, 51-68. The Wildcats kept the second matchup closer throughout the game, but ultimately lost, 59-67, putting them at 0-2 against UAA on the season.

The GNAC tournament is single-elimination. CWU and SFU are scheduled to tip off March 5 at 7:30 p.m. in the Brougham Pavilion on Seattle Pacific University’s campus.