Box Score

BURNABY, B.C. - Western Washington senior center Blake Bowen scored a career-high 24 points to lead the Vikings to a 104-60 victory over Simon Fraser University Tuesday night in a Great Northwest Athletic Conference men's basketball game at West Gym.

The Vikings opened the second half of the conference season with their third consecutive victory to 13-7 overall and 7-4 in GNAC play. Simon Fraser drops to 1-16 overall and 0-11 in conference play.

Bowen (Vancouver, WA/Skyview/Clark CC) made the most of his third career start scoring a game-high 24 points while going 9-for-12 from the field, including 5-for-7 from 3-point range. The 6-9 center added 6 rebounds and a pair of blocked shots.

Sophomore guards Blake Fernandez (Mountlake Terrace, WA/Edmonds CC) and Brad Wallace (Lacey, WA/River Ridge/North Idaho/Eastern Washington) also notched career highs in points with 11 and 10 respectively.

Senior point guard Ricardo Maxwell (Cincinnati, OH/Withrow/Edmonds CC) contributed 13 points in 19 minutes and junior forward Jeffrey Parker (Richmond, CA/Salesian) was 4-for-9 from the field while also scoring 13 points. Redshirt freshman Trey Drechsel (Woodinville, WA/Cedar Park Christian) recorded a career-high 10 rebounds.

WWU shot 56.3 (36-for-64) from the field and equaled its best three-point shooting night of the season hitting 12-of-24 from beyond the arc. The Vikings also totaled a season-high 16 steals to help lead to 22 SFU turnovers. Fernandez recorded 5 steals, the most by a WWU player this season.

The Vikings held a 12-point lead (43-31) at halftime with Bowen leading the way with 16 points (6-for-8 FG, 4-for-6 3FG) and 4 rebounds. WWU shot 53.1% from the field in the half on 17-for-32 from the field and 7-for-14 from 3-point range. Maxwell added 7 points and Parker added 6 points.

SFU cut the Western lead to 10 points at 43-33 early in the second half, but the Vikings took off on a 35-14 run to grow the lead to 31 points at 78-47. Senior forward Colby Mitchell (Chugiak, AK/Mount Hood CC) scored all 11 of his points in the second half to lead all players.

Point guard Oshea Gairey led SFU with 13 points, while Michael Harper and JJ Pankratz each scored 12 points. The Clan were limited to 36.8% from the field (21-for-57) including hitting just 2-for-14 3-point attempts.

The Vikings (13-7, 7-4 GNAC) play their fourth game in an 8-game stretch Thursday hosting Montana State Billings (6-12, 3-7 GNAC) Thursday at Whatcom Pavilion (7:30 pm). The game will be broadcast on KPUG 1170 am.