Sometimes being one-sided is a good thing. Mount Rushmore is one-sided. The Mona Lisa is one-sided. But the one-sided relationship between the UAA and UAF women's basketball teams is anything but pretty. It's downright un-Fairbanks.
On Saturday night, the Seawolves won their 15th consecutive game against their northern rivals in spectacular fashion, running UAF out of the Alaska Airlines Center in a 87-62 Great Northwest Conference beat-down.
"It's pretty easy for our team to get up for this game," said UAA coach Ryan McCarthy, whose team remained in first place in the GNAC.
The game was over almost as soon as it began. UAA wasted little time imposing its will on the Nanooks, knocking down its first six field goal attempts and racing to a 17-3 lead. Those six shots included a trio of 3-pointers, including a pair from Jessica Madison and another from Adriana Dent.
Anyone who made the 350-mile trip south from Fairbanks hoping to see the Nanooks win a seventh straight game was given plenty of first-half reasons to hit the road early for the trip home. UAA (5-1 GNAC, 15-1 overall) owned the first half, stretching its lead to 34 points on back-to-back buckets by Jenna Buchanan late in the half. UAA took a 51-18 lead into the locker room, effectively ending any Nanook dreams of putting the long losing streak to bed.
McCarthy said the Seawolves had "a great week of practice," and thinks the team has returned to the level it was playing at before a home stumble on New Year's Day against Northwest Nazarene.
"I think we're fresh again," he said.
UAA shot a sizzling 56.3 percent in the opening half, including 5 of 9 from beyond the arc. But as good as the Seawolves were on offense that half, they were even more dominant on defense.The Nanooks (4-3, 12-5) shot a paltry 15 percent in the half and committed 19 turnovers -- a rate of almost one per minute.
The Seawolves continued the onslaught in the second half, consistently outhustling and outshooting their overmatched rivals. That was no more apparent than midway through the half, when Kiki Robertson provided the game's signature play.
Waiting to throw an in-bounds pass from the UAA baseline, the flashy sophomore point guard decided to pull a fast one. Upon noticing UAF's defense napping on the play, Robertson alertly threw the ball off opponent Daron Mainville's back, caught it herself and went up for an easy lay-up that gave UAA its largest lead of the game at 69-33. The heady (or embarrassing, depending on your perspective) play was basically the game in microcosm.
"Coach tells me to look for that if it's there," said Robertson, who finished with 13 points and was one of five Seawolves in double figures.
Jessica Madison's 15 points led UAA, which also got 12 each from Megan Mullings and Alli Madison. Robertson had seven assists and seven steals for UAA, which had three players -- Buchanan, Mullings and KeKe Wright -- with six rebounds each.
Kailee Skjold and Benissa Bulaya scored 11 each and Mainville had 10 for UAF.
The win was the fourth straight for UAA and enabled the Seawolves to keep pace with Seattle Pacific (6-1, 14-1) in the highly competitive GNAC. UAA, ranked No. 5 in the NCAA Division II national rankings, plays two key conference games this week at home. The Seawolves will host Western Washington (5-2, 11-5) on Thursday and Simon Fraser (5-2, 9-6) on Saturday.
McCarthy said he thought his team got a bit sloppy in the second half, something it can't afford to do next week.
"We've gotta shore things up on defense and keep executing our offense at a high level," he said.
Still, the third-year coach had little to complain about after the game.
"When you can put a team away early like that it's pretty nice," he said.