BY CHACE DAVY, Staff Reporter
Thursday was a doubleheader night for Central Washington University basketball, with both the men and women’s team playing back-to-back.
The black-clad Central men’s team was unable to duplicate the success of the women earlier in the night, falling to nationally-ranked Seattle Pacific University, 91-59.
The loss officially eliminates the Wildcats from Great Northwest Athletic Conference playoff contention with one game remaining on the schedule, Montana State University Billings, which is on Saturday. Billings beat the Wildcats in the opening game of conference play this year.
The nation’s highest percentage shooter from three-point range, SPU’s Patrick Simon, scored the Falcon’s first 10 points and hit five of seven three-point attempts on the night.
“We let [Simon] get going early, and it set the tone for the entire game,” head coach Greg Sparling said.
Despite Simon’s quick start, Central was able to stay in contention early. The Wildcat’s held a 20-18 lead with under eight minutes to go in the first half, and then the Falcon’s top-ranked scoring attack burst through. Seattle Pacific finished off the last eight minutes of the half scoring 26 points while the Wildcat offense was stagnant, scoring just nine in the same span.
Seattle Pacific’s entire offense seemed to be clicking on all cylinders on Thursday, hitting 13 of 19 three-point shots, only missing one in the entire second half. They finished the game shooting 58 percent.
The Wildcats shot just 43 percent from the field, and made only 6 of 16 free throw attempts. Central was also unable to capitalize off turnovers, scoring only two points off of 11 takeaways.
Sophomore guard Jordan Russell scored 13 points off the bench, and was 2 for 4 from beyond the three-point line.
With nothing but pride on the line for Saturday’s game against Billings, Russell is trying to keep a positive demeanor.
“I’m gonna come ready to play every game,” Russell said. “Keep going hard, you never know when it’s going to be your last day.”
Saturday’s game is senior night for the Wildcats, and for five players, it will be their last game in a Central uniform.
One of those five players is senior forward JB Pillard, who was clearly disappointed after the game.
“It’s just a pride thing I guess, it’s my last collegiate basketball game,” Pillard said. “You wanna go out with a win, it’s better to say you went out with a win than a loss.”
