UAA Athletics

Seawolves will head to Hawaii for the West Region women’s basketball tournament

The UAA women’s basketball team is headed to Hawaii to play a team it beat Saturday in Washington.

The Seawolves will meet Western Washington on Friday in the first round of the NCAA Division II West Region championships in Honolulu.

On Saturday, the Seawolves beat the Vikings 89-68 to run their record to 31-2.

UAA is the No. 2 seed in the eight-team tournament. Western Washington (22-9) is the No. 7 seed.

In other first-round games, top-seed and tournament host Hawaii Pacific (29-1) will face No. 8 Cal Poly Pomona (19-10); No. 4 Cal State San Marcos (25-5) will play No. 5 Azusa Pacific (25-5); and No. 3 UC San Diego (25-5) will meet No. 6 Northwest Nazarene (22-7).

The winner of the UAA-Western Washington game will play the winner of the Northwest Nazarene-San Diego game in a Saturday semifinal.

Tipoff times will be announced later in the week.

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UAA is 2-1 this season against Western Washington. The Vikings won the first game 71-64 in Bellingham and UAA won the second game 83-76 in Anchorage.

The third meeting came Saturday in the championship game of the Great Northwest Athletic Conference tournament in Seattle, where the Seawolves forced 23 turnovers to win handily.

This is the seventh straight NCAA Tournament appearance for the Seawolves with coach Ryan McCarthy, who is in his ninth season with the team.

UAA has won the West Region championship four times (2016, 2012, 2009, 2008), and in 2016 it finished as the national runner-up.

The championship game is Monday night. The winner will advance to the March 24-27 Elite Eight in Birmingham, Alabama.

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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