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Spring 2007 | Volume 30, Number 1
| Athletics
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Falcons Bring Home GNAC Titles
Season of Surprises
Dustin Bremerman |
A couple more conference championship trophies have arrived in Brougham Pavilion. Demonstrating resilience and an ability to surpass others’ expectations, both Falcon basketball teams won Great Northwest Athletic Conference (GNAC) titles in 2007.
Their accomplishments over the past few years have set the bar high for the Seattle Pacific University men’s and women’s programs. In the preseason this year, however, both were picked by the GNAC to finish only third. In taking first, they surprised everyone.
Coach Jeff Hironaka lost his starting point guard to a season-ending knee injury in the first 30 minutes of the season. Still, the Falcons soldiered on, recovering from three consecutive December defeats to win 11 of 16 league contests. In a 70-64 win over Western Washington on March 1, they clinched a shared GNAC title with Seattle University.
Senior Dustin Bremerman was voted GNAC co-player of the year and named to the Daktronics All-West Region first team. Bremerman finished his career as the school’s No. 2 scorer and three-point marksman.
Coach Julie van Beek was already coping with replacing four graduated starters when disaster struck this season. In a span of two months, van Beek lost two of her three centers for the entire season and was felled herself by a ruptured Achilles.
Her staff and players took up the slack. Kelsey Hill developed into an all-region center in her own right, becoming the first sophomore since 1991 to lead the Falcons in scoring and rebounding. After taking the GNAC crown outright with a 59-55 victory over cross-city rival Seattle University, SPU went on to advance to the second round of the NCAA tournament, finishing 20-9.
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