Box Score

Fresno Pacific put together a great first half against No. 6 Western Washington, but couldn't hang with the Vikings in the second half in a 46-75 season-opening loss.

Patrice Saindon dropped 10 for the Sunbirds, the only FPU player to hit double figures in a well-balanced attack.  Freshman Bree Alvarez scored nine points in her first college game, and redshirt junior Jenay Herring poured in eight for the Sunbirds. Herring also had three assists and Charde Stevens added seven rebounds.

"I think it was for us to finally play someone other than ourselves and against the No. 6 team in the nation," said head coach Lindsey Wilson. "We got to see where we want to be. We are still learning and in the first half we did a lot of really good things against a team that made it to the final four last season."

The Vikings jumped out to a quick 8-0 lead in the first half that the Sunbirds slowly whittled down to two at 26-28 on a jumper by Stevens with 3:53 remaining the half.

"I think we played hard the whole first half and we didn't care that they were ranked sixth in the country. We were doing a good job of making adjustments and playing together and we were tough the whole 20 minutes, which is a good start," said Wilson.

Western Washington put the clamps down in the second half starting the final period on a 13-0 run to push their six points lead to 19 at 48-29. The Vikings continued to pour it on behind 15 points by freshman Kiana Gandy and 14 from Taylor Peacocke.

"They are a lot bigger than us and they really started to hurt us on the boards early in the second half and get some offensive put backs."

Fresno Pacific will close out the 2013 West Region Crossover Classic tomorrow night at 7:30 p.m. when they take on Seattle Pacific in the FPU Events Center.