UAA women’s basketball wins ‘bittersweet blowout’ in conference opener

The University of Alaska Anchorage basketball programs officially began the Great Northwest Athletic Conference play portion of the 2024-25 season Thursday night at the Alaska Airlines Center. In the first game, the women’s team blew out Saint Martin’s 78-58 to improve to 9-1 and grow its winning streak to five in a row.

“This was a great win for us, this was a good Division II team and we needed a good Division II win,” junior guard Elaina Mack said. “We love that it’s in conference and we went out there and competed well, and it’s good to have a win against Saint Martin’s.”

Seawolves head coach Ryan McCarthy was happy with the result but far from satisfied with how they ultimately got there.

“I was more disappointed in our execution ... because I think we missed out on a lot of opportunities on both ends of the floor,” McCarthy said. “We were pointing fingers on why we were fouling and not really taking ownership in that way, but I think there’s a lot to learn from this game for us.”

All that being said, he knows that “it’s much better to learn from a win than a loss” and believes doing so Thursday will give the team even more confidence moving forward with their home matchup against Western Oregon on Saturday night.

“Even when we don’t play our best game, particularly on the defensive end, we’re still talented enough to come away with a win and we have some really good individual players on this team,” McCarthy said. “As a coach that’s nice, but in-game, I don’t look at it like that.”

UAA opened the game with a 7-0 run in the first 40 seconds followed by an 11-0 run by Saint Martin’s to take the lead. After the Seawolves responded with a 12-0 run, they never trailed again.

“Basketball is a game of runs,” Mack said. “It’s going to be ,who is going to execute the most down the stretch, and I think we did a better job of that than we have at the beginning of the season.”

Mack was one of four players on the team to reach double figures in scoring with a game-high 16 points, followed by senior guard Emilia Long with 15 while forwards Hedda Koehne and Tori Hollingshead tied for third with 10 apiece.

Overall, McCarthy characterized the Seawolves’ commanding conference-opening victory as a “bittersweet blowout” and looks forward to building upon their success.

“We started making these passes I’d never seen before,” he said. “Twenty-seven turnovers for us is unacceptable, and we were fortunate enough that we were able to take the ball back more times than that. But normally, you give up 27 and you’re showing up Monday running lines. For us, it is a bittersweet win.”

UAA men show resilience but narrowly fall to Saint Martin’s

In the second game of Thursday’s nightcap, the Seawolves men’s team went down to the wire but came up just short of victory in a 79-74 loss to the Saints.

“We played a very good team tonight,” UAA head coach Rusty Osborne said. “Saint Martin’s is playing well here early in the season. They’ve got a veteran group that’s played together and they’ve got quite a bit bigger core than we have, so they’re better and more cohesive early.”

He believes his team is still finding its way after bringing in some new pieces this offseason and having dealt with some injuries at the onset of the season that prevented the Seawolves from getting into more of a rhythm ahead of conference play.

“Systematically, we’re still gaining trust in each other, in the system and the things that we’re doing,” Osborne said. “It seems kind of crazy because we’re 10 games in, but this was a whole new group that had a lot of small injuries early. We weren’t able to get really good practice in the preseason, so over the last two or three weeks, we’ve made a lot of strides.”

UAA trailed by as many as nine at one point in the first half but was able to make it a two-point game with six minutes until halftime. A 3-pointer from junior forward Bishop Tosi gave the Seawolves their first lead since the opening minutes at 35-34.

From there, the two teams traded buckets until they were at a 40-40 stalemate at the break. Back-to-back 3-pointers from junior guard Hasaan Herrington would’ve given the Seawolves the lead at halftime, but his second shot was reviewed and negated after being deemed a shot-clock violation.

“We weren’t quite as cohesive there early, but to our guys’ credit, they turned it around and we battled back to even at halftime,” Osborne said.

The second half picked up where the first left off, with the teams going back and forth and no team holding more than a three-point lead until Osborne was called for a technical foul that gave the Saints the breathing room they needed to gain and keep a decisive lead. It occurred in the middle of a pair of free-throw attempts and would end up being a four-point play to put the Saints ahead 58-53.

UAA trailed by as many as seven points but kept chipping away, making it a one-point game with just under five minutes left to play. A trio of successful free-throw attempts by junior guard Tyler Burraston made it 77-74 with 45.1 seconds left on the clock.

“We talked about being resilient and staying in the fight for 40 minutes and let’s see where that gets us, and I thought we were,” Osborne said.

Unfortunately, the Seawolves gave up a layup on the ensuing possession, which all but sealed their fate.

Burraston was one of four Seawolves who reached double figures in scoring with a game-high 22, followed by Herrington and senior guard Sean Evans, who tied for second with 13 points. Tosi followed with 11 points and recorded his second double-double of the season by leading the team with a game-high 11 rebounds.

Even in defeat, it was an overall encouraging performance from Osborne’s team against a formidable opponent with lessons they’ll learn from and apply moving forward.

“We’re getting better every day, went toe-to-toe with a very good team,” Osborne said. “It was a high-level basketball game. There was only 13 total turnovers between the two teams. I’m not happy with the result but I’m encouraged with the way we’re making progress.”