UAA Athletics

Fast start carries UAA women to another win

They played 40 minutes Saturday night in Lacey, Washington, but the game was all but over after the first four minutes.

The UAA women's basketball team used a red-hot start to race past Saint Martin's 78-41 to remain undefeated in Great Northwest Athletic Conference play.

The game matched the conference's first-place team against its last-place team, and the Saints (5-13 overall, 1-9 GNAC) proved no match for the Seawolves (17-1, 10-0).

UAA led 15-0 after four minutes and 21-2 after less than seven minutes.

UAA senior point guard Kiki Robertson set the tone with a 3-pointer 21 seconds into the game. She assisted on back-to-back triples by Tara Thompson for a 9-0 lead, and then Autummn Williams, Sierra Afoa and Hannah Wandersee provided short-range buckets to make it 15-0 just a little more than four minutes into the game.

"We have so many good perimeter shooters, it's hard to scout us, because it's not just one or two shooters," UAA coach Ryan McCarthy said. "It can come from a lot of different people."

Everybody played and everybody contributed for the 5th-ranked Seawolves, who won their 13th straight game.

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Williams hit 7 of 11 shots for a game-high 17 points, and Robertson furnished 11 points, six steals and three assists.

Thompson and Wandersee each finished with nine points, Shelby Cloninger dished a career-high six assists to go with six rebounds, Kimijah King and Sierra Afoa each grabbed five rebounds while combining for 15 points, and Zhara Laster provided six points, four rebounds and three assists in 14 minutes of action.

UAA matched its Division II-leading average of 17 steals per game, with Wandersee and Yazmine Goo each getting three.

The Seawolves' pressing defense led to 31 turnovers and held the Saints to 34 percent shooting. UAA hit 52 percent of its shots.

"It gets everyone going when you're hitting on the offensive end," McCarthy said, "but I think the reason that happened is our defense."

The game came two days after UAA needed a second-half rally to get past Seattle Pacific 71-62, one of its closest games this season against a Division II team. Defense helped turned things around in that game, and it made the difference again Saturday.

"I thought they built off those last two quarters (against SPU)," McCarthy said. "We talked about being sharp defensively, and their focus in that area led to a lot of turnovers and easy transition baskets."

Saint Martin's got 16 points on 6-of-10 shooting by forward Elin Johansson. She was 6 of 10 from the field but the rest of the Saints were 8 of 31.

UAA is back home this week for a pair of GNAC games at the Alaska Airlines Center. The Seawolves host the UAF Nanooks on Tuesday and play Montana State-Billings on Thursday.

Beth Bragg

Beth Bragg wrote about sports and other topics for the ADN for more than 35 years, much of it as sports editor. She retired in October 2021. She's contributing coverage of Alaskans involved in the 2022 Winter Olympics.

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