Sports

UAA men hold off No. 20 Western Oregon for clutch GNAC hoops win

With the start of the Iditarod a mere 10 days away, it's fitting that a Seawolf from Nome played his way out of the doghouse and into the winner's circle Thursday night at the Alaska Airlines Center.

Only a week removed from missing a game due to a discipline issue, UAA junior Christian Leckband scored eight of his team-high 16 points in the final 6:30 of the game as the Seawolves held on for an 80-78 Great Northwest Athletic Conference win over No. 20 Western Oregon in front of a crowd of 1,910.

"I had to mature over the weekend," said Leckband, who sat out UAA's 80-67 loss last Thursday at Central Washington due to a violation of team rules.

Leckband said he learned a lot by having to miss a game, which he said helped him refocus on basketball.

"It opened my eyes was the biggest thing," he said.

Leckband went 4-for-4 from behind the 3-point line and hit six of seven total shots.

UAA got clutch performances up and down its lineup to earn its biggest conference win of the season. Derrick Fain scored 16 points for UAA, which shot 56 percent from the floor. Dom Hunter scored 14 points, Travis Thompson added 11 and Brian McGill had six points and dished eight assists. Reserve forward Sjur Berg provided 19 key minutes off the bench, chipping in nine points and hauling in a team-best six boards.

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"I was very proud of this group tonight," said UAA head coach Rusty Osborne.

Osborne said he wasn't even sure how many minutes he'd give Leckband, but the junior showed in practices leading up to Thursday that he'd learned a lesson on the bench.

"He rewarded that confidence," Osborne said.

WOU's Julian Nichols missed a driving lay-up that would have tied the game at the end of regulation for the Wolves, sending the large, green-clad home crowd into a tizzy.

Devon Alexander scored a game-high 20 points and Andy Avgi added 19 to lead Western Oregon.

UAA electrified the home fans by closing the first half on a 19-6 run. The team ended an entertaining half in style, using an old-fashioned 3-point play by Berg to go up 38-35 and getting a new-school trey from Fain to make it 41-37 at the half.

Hunter led all scorers with 11 points in the first half for UAA, which overcame a 9-2 turnover disadvantage by shooting 58 percent from the floor and nailing seven triples in the first 20 minutes.

"I think we took a step forward as a group tonight," Osborne said.

Fain started the second half just as he'd left off, hitting a pair of early jumpers to extend UAA's lead to as many as six points early in the period.

Western Oregon reclaimed the lead midway through the half, but Hunter once again came to the rescue, burying a 3-pointer to knot the game 60-60 with 9:30 to go.

The teams battled back-and-forth from that point on, with neither able to take more than a four-point lead until Leckband blew the roof off the Alaska Airlines Center when he hammered a clutch 3-pointer -- his fourth of the game -- to make it 74-69 with less than three minutes on the clock.

Leckband came through again a minute later when his jumper from the corner extended UAA's lead to 78-74 with 1:58 to go.

Leckband credited his teammates for having confidence in him down the stretch.

"My teammates found me when I was open," he said.

Thompson's driving basket with 1:10 left in the game made it 80-74 and proved to be the game-winner.

Western Oregon made things interesting down the stretch, cutting the lead to 80-78 with a steal and lay-up with 51 seconds to play. Things got even dicier when UAA's McGill missed a lay-up with less than 20 seconds to go. That gave Western Oregon a chance to call timeout to set up the final play of regulation. But Nichols' contested lay-up rimmed out, and a desperation WOU shot at the buzzer didn't draw iron.

The win snapped a two-game conference losing for the Seawolves (15-12 overall, 11-6 GNAC) and ended a two-game skid against the Wolves (22-5, 14-3), who defeated the Seawolves 87-66 in December in Monmouth.

UAA will wrap up its regular season Saturday at home at 3:15 p.m. against Saint Martin's (6-21, 3-14), which lost in overtime on Thursday at UAF. The Seawolves have already wrapped up a spot in the six-team GNAC playoffs and can finish as high at third in the conference with a win over the Saints.

Matt Tunseth

Matt Tunseth is a former reporter for the Anchorage Daily News and former editor of the Alaska Star.

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