FAIRBANKS, Alaska -
Brittney Roggenkamp became the 22nd women's basketball player in NNU history to reach the 1,000 point mark, scoring a team-high 17 points as the Northwest Nazarene women's basketball team defeated the University of Alaska Fairbanks 81-45 on Saturday afternoon in the final game of the regular season.
The Crusaders finish the regular season 19-8, including 9-7 in the GNAC, and now will await word from the NCAA on whether it will compete in next week's NCAA West Regional. NNU was ranked 6th in last week's final regular season West Regional Poll.
A win by Chico State over Humboldt State in tonight's CCAA championship game will all but assure NNU a place in the tournament. Humboldt State needs a victory to qualify with an automatic bid, which would also put the Crusaders playoff hopes in jeopardy.
The NCAA tournament announcement will come late on Monday night, as the Pacific West Conference teams were granted an extension by the NCAA to play their final games on Monday, due to the Tsunami warning last week that canceled several PacWest contests on the Hawaiian islands.
Joining Roggenkamp in the scoring parade were Janee Olds and Lindsay Brady with 12 points each. Kristin Hein had 11 points and a game-high 13 rebounds.
Roggenkamp capped her final season by joining teammates Brady and Olds, who had previously reached the 1,000-point mark in the past three weeks. The Crusader seniors are a unique group, with five of six graduating seniors having scored 900 points or more, each. Roggenkamp now has 1,006 career points.
Alaska Fairbanks (2-25, 1-15) got more than half its points from Lakeshia Levi who had 24. Levi, who made nine of 22 shots, also led her team with eight rebounds and four steals. UAF's Jessica Harrison also had eight rebounds.
Northwest Nazarene held UAF to just 16 field goals in 60 attempts while shooting 40.8 on 29 of 71. The Crusaders also finished with a 55-38 rebounding advantage and had seven fewer turnovers (24-17).
Defensively, NNU got three steals each from Hein and Falissa Smith.
