Western Washington will find a familiar foe when it travels to California for Friday’s NCAA Division II women’s basketball tournament opener — conference rival Alaska Anchorage.
On Sunday, Western, the regular-season Great Northwest Athletic Conference champion, received an at-large berth in the 64-team tournament, which features eight regional brackets of eight teams each.
“You never take for granted that exciting feeling when you see the team react to making the tournament,” said 31-year coach Carmen Dolfo, who held a team party to watch the tournament selection show Sunday night. “We’ve had a lot of ups and downs, but through it all, we have stuck together and we look forward to going back on the road for another challenge.”
The Vikings, who lost to Central Washington in the GNAC tournament final Saturday night, are the West Region’s No. 3 seed. Alaska Anchorage (20-6) is seeded sixth.
The West Region will be held in Hayward, California, hosted by region No. 1 seed Cal State East Bay (22-2), winner of the California Collegiate Athletic Association tournament.
Winners from each regional tournament will meet in the NCAA Final Eight in Birmingham, Alabama on March 21 (quarterfinals) and March 23 (semifinals). The NCAA title game is March 25 in Birmingham.
Four GNAC teams made the West Region, including No. 2 Central Washington (23-7), the automatic bid by virtue of its conference tournament title, and No. 7 Northwest Nazarene (18-9), another at-large team. If Western beats Alaska Anchorage for what would be a third time this season, it would play the winner of Central and Northwest Nazarene.
“It’s like a GNAC tournament all over again,” said conference coach of the year Dolfo, leading the Vikings to their 18th NCAA berth in 23 seasons since joining the NCAA in 1998-99. “But we’re excited. We get the opportunity to keep playing. We know Anchorage well, we played them twice. We match up well against them. Two teams that are pretty defensively oriented.”
Western defeated the Seawolves, 53-45, in Anchorage on Jan. 20 and 65-50 Feb. 19 in Bellingham. If the Vikings advance, it’ll be a tough road: Northwest Nazarene was the only conference team to beat Western twice in the regular season, both times in overtime; Central Washington defeated the Vikings, 57-46, on Saturday after splitting regular-season games.
After leading the conference in field-goal percentage during the regular season, Western shot an abysmal 25% in the title game for its second of three poor shooting performances.
If they meet CWU again, said Dolfo, “I feel like that’s OK. We get to avenge (Saturday) night and I think we could’ve played a lot better. I don’t know if we could’ve shot that bad again.”
If Western can win its first two games, the bracket’s top-half teams aren’t total strangers. Western has played all but East Bay early this season, beating No. 8 seed Academy of Art (18-10), No. 4 Cal State San Marcos (22-3) and No. 5 Azusa Pacific (24-3).
The Vikings are led by all-conference first-teamer Emma Duff, team high-scorer and senior guard who can take over games late; sophomore forward Brooke Walling, who usually guards the opposing team’s top player; and Everson sisters Avery and Riley Dykstra. Junior Avery is the GNAC defensive player of the year and Riley, the GNAC Freshman of the Year, is a key figure mostly off the bench.
Alaska Anchorage is led by GNAC first-team senior center Tennae Voliva, averaging 12.7 points per game and seven rebounds in the regular season and Jahnna Hajdukovich, who has hit 38% of 3-point attempts.
The Vikings, who lost starting senior point guard Dani Iwami to a knee injury midway through the season, have seen limited time from backup junior point guard Mollie Olson, who tore a tendon and did not play Saturday. They hope she can return.
Western had the conference’s best defense, holding opponents to 56.4 points per game in the regular season, but hopes players regain their shooting touch.
“We’re a good shooting team,” said Dolfo, whose team has led the GNAC in field-goal percentage and 3-pointers this season. “It’s nothing to stress about … Maybe slow down a little on our shots. We can turn this around.”
Go to wwuvikings.com/Live for links to watch the game and follow via live statistics.
