GNAC release (HTML)
 
PORTLAND, Ore. – With victories in 11 of their first 12 women's basketball games, the Seattle Pacific Falcons are getting noticed.
 
Victories in two tough road venues raised their profile even more – raised it enough that they have been selected as the Great Northwest Athletic Conference's Team of the Week.
 
SPU rallied from an 11-point first-half eficit at Western Washington last Thursday to win, 74-64, then came from 11 down in the first half at Simon Fraser on Saturday to emerge victorious, 61-56. That elevated its overall record to 11-1, and its conference mark to 3-1, forging a first-place tie with Alaska Anchorage.
 
"Our ability to do different things on defense and taking care of the ball has been huge," head coach Julie Heisey said.
 
The award is the first for the women's basketball team, and third overall for Seattle Pacific this school year. The men's soccer team won it on Oct. 7, and women's soccer picked it up on Nov. 11.
 
After falling behind early in the first half, SPU went on a 20-4 run to open the second and never relinquished the lead. Suzanna Ohlsen, chosen on Monday as the GNAC Player of the Week for the second time this season, and senior guard Aubree Callen combined for 49 points, including 29 in the opening half.
 
"We didn't start off very well, especially at Western, giving up easy baskets and open shots," Heisey said. "I think we were a little rusty from Christmas break. We were behind, but our defense got us back into the game."
 
Saturday's win against Simon Fraser in Burnaby, B.C., came against a Clan team that had the last unbeaten record in conference play. Seattle Pacific was down 15-4 just more than six minutes into the game, then went on a 31-10 run through the rest of the first half to take a 35-25 lead into the locker room at halftime.
 
"We beat both those teams without one of our starting post players (Maddey Pflaumer), and, even though we got out-rebounded, I thought we showed toughness and will blocking out bigger bodies," Heisey said.
 
The Falcons, who rank No. 2 in GNAC shooting at 45.6 percent, shot even better than that in the two games combined, hitting 46.7 perent (49 of 105). Ohlsen hit 50 percent in each game (9 of 18 at Western, 7 of 14 at Simon), and sophomore guard / forward Hannah Rodrigues hit 66.7 percent (4 of 6 in each game).
 
"Suzanna Ohlsen, Aubree Callen and Betsy Kingma have been outstanding setting the tone," Heisey said. "Suzanna is getting multiple steals and assists every game. Aubree is doing everything well and just playing real solid. Betsy did a lot of good things that didn't show up on the stat book and played really good defense against Erin Chambers."
 
The Falcons will play another NCAA tournament team from last year as they head to Montana State Billings for Saturday's game against the Yellowjackets (9-5, 1-3 GNAC). Tip-off is at 6:00 p.m. Pacific time.

Information from the official GNAC release is included in this story.