BURNABY, B.C. – The Alaska Nanooks women's basketball team continues to hunt for their first Great Northwest Athletic Conference victory this season, as the Nooks fell 73-49 to the Simon Fraser University Clan in a conference matchup at the West Gymnasium on Sunday afternoon. The loss drops Alaska's overall record to 4-7 and 0-5 in GNAC contests, while the Clan improve to 6-6 on the season and 1-3 in league play.
"Today's loss had a large deficit but it was a good learning experience for us," head coach
Brett Sawyer said on Sunday. "We came back and tied the game in the third quarter but following that, we couldn't score for a long time and they definitely took advantage of it. We did play better today than Friday at Western Washington but we're going to regroup and learn from these two conference games."
The Nanooks were held to shooting only 38.9 percent from the floor, going 21-for-54 from the field as a team. Alaska also shot 25.0 percent from three-point range (2-for-8) and 35.7 percent from the free throw line (5-for-14).
Turnovers plagued the Alaska squad once again, as the Clan capitalized on 10 steals from the Nanooks' 24 turnovers. Conversely, Alaska tallied nine steals from SFU's 15 turnovers on the day.
Alaska and Simon Fraser tied each other in rebounds in Sunday's GNAC matchup, as both teams registered 40 boards. Simon Fraser edged Alaska 15-13 in offensive rebounds, while Alaska cleaned up around in the defensive zone, totaling 27 camrons to SFU's 25.
Sophomore guard
Lexi Carpenter, redshirt-sophomore guard
Sabrina Ungaro and junior forward
Sanni Salonen tied for the team-best offensively, chipping in nine points each. Both Salonen and Ungaro shot 4-for-7 from the floor, while Carpenter went 4-for-16, including 1-for-4 from behind the arc.
Furthermore, Carpenter led all Alaska players in rebounds, registering eight against the Clan for a season-best. Sophomore guard
Kylie Wallace tabbed a team-best three assists, while Ungaro posted three steals and two assists.
Simon Fraser was led by Sophie Swant, who registered the game's lone double-double with 21 points and 10 rebounds. SFU also had three other players register double-digit points, including Jessica Jones (17 points), Kendal Sands (11 points) and Claudia Hart (10 points).
The Alaska Nanooks women's basketball team will be back in action next week, as they take on the Montana State Billings Yellowjackets in a GNAC matchup on Thursday, Jan. 4 at the Alterowitz Gymnasium in Billings. Tip-off is slated for 5pm AKST.
For more information on the Alaska Nanooks women's basketball team, follow @NanooksWBB on Twitter or like the Alaska Nanooks Women's Basketball team page.