Sports

No. 1 UAA survives Central Washington 69-61 despite missing key players

UAA coach Ryan McCarthy found himself in a pickle early in his team's matchup against Great Northwest Athletic Conference foe Central Washington on Saturday.

McCarthy, who normally utilizes 12 players, was limited to four available players on the bench because of injuries and illness, and the result was a hotly contested women's basketball game that UAA survived 69-61 at the Alaska Airlines Center.

The top-ranked Seawolves (28-1, 14-1 GNAC) played without three players who do much of their work in the paint — starting forward Alysha Devine was out with illness, reserve center Dominique Brooks was out with a concussion and guard/forward Keiahnna Engel injured her knee just three minutes into the game.

"The interesting thing about the three injuries is, typically for us it wouldn't be a huge deal if those were in different positions, but they were in the same exact position," McCarthy said. "We had one power forward tonight and two centers, and that's not good for us."

McCarthy had to move guard Jenna Buchanan to forward for much of the game. The senior 3-point specialist finished with 13 points despite playing out of position.

The injuries also resulted in increased minutes for center Megan Mullings, who finished with 12 of her 18 points in the second half. The senior preseason GNAC Player of the Year was clutch from the free-throw line, where she made a season-high 10 of 12 attempts.

But the win was anything but easy for UAA. Central Washington's Jasmin Edwards (18 points), Sadie Mensing (13) and Melanie Valdez (10) paced the Wildcats (15-9, 8-8), who led 15-12 at the end of the first quarter. It was only the third time all season that UAA had trailed after one quarter.

ADVERTISEMENT

The absent players and those playing out of position greatly limited UAA's offense, McCarthy said. The Seawolves couldn't run many of their usual set plays.

"We kind of just had to wing it for a while, honestly," McCarthy said. "We were just going on the fly and it was kind of like open gym basketball there in the first quarter. Against a good team like Central, it's hard to execute offense when you're kind of winging it like that."

During timeouts, McCarthy had to explain set plays step by step — something normally reserved for practice.

The Seawolves finally found some rhythm late in the second quarter, and they led 30-26 at halftime largely thanks to eight points by Jessica Madison in the final three minutes.

Valdez hit a 3-pointer with five seconds left in the third quarter to bring Central Washington within two points, 46-44.

UAA finally found some breathing room late in the fourth quarter by consistently getting to the free-throw line. The Seawolves made 11 free throws in the fourth quarter and were 20 of 24 for the game.

Up 54-52 with less than seven minutes remaining, Buchanan sank two attempts from the charity stripe.

A Central Washington turnover led to consecutive layups by Mullings and Kiki Robertson, building the Seawolves' lead to eight points, a margin they maintained for the final five minutes.

"If we didn't have this many seniors who have this many minutes under their belt, this game probably would have been different," McCarthy said. "This was all about the ladies — when those (tough) situations hit — just stepping up and making plays and using what they've learned in the program and applying it to the game situation."

McCarthy said he doesn't know the timetable yet for when Devine, Engel or Brooks will return, but he'll prepare his team to be ready for any absences in practice next week, when the Seawolves play two games on the road

Normally, no UAA player plays more than 25 minutes per game, but Mullings played 34 minutes and Buchanan played 30 Saturday.

"It's always nice to have extra minutes, but it's definitely something that we weren't used to," Mullings said. "Being tested to push past that physical fatigue and just staying sharp, staying focused — it was a really, really good test just to show ourselves and show our coaches that we're locked in and we're ready to do this."

Stephan Wiebe

Stephan Wiebe writes about all things Alaska sports.

ADVERTISEMENT