ELLENSBURG, Wash. (Dec. 6) — Central Washington University (5-2, 2-0 Great Northwest Athletic Conference led wire-to-wire in a 73-67 GNAC men's basketball victory over visiting Seattle Pacific (6-3, 1-1 GNAC) Saturday night in Nicholsion Pavilion. 
 
For the second straight game, senior guard Dom Williams led the Wildcats as he scored 19 points in the contest. He was one of four Central players in double figures.
 
Williams hit a three-point shot to begin the game and SPU never got closer than a 3-2 deficit. Williams ended up making four three-point shots. He also dished out a team high five assists.
 
"It feels great to get out there and get two league wins in the beginning," Williams said, referring to CWU's other home GNAC win Thursday over Montana State University Billings.
 
CWU head coach Greg Sparling added, "The whole game plan going in was to not shoot a ton of threes. Eighteen of our 52 shot attempts were from the three-point line and we made nine of them. If you do that with this team we're going to win a lot of ballgames."
 
Senior forward Julian Vaughn acknowledges the victory was particularly sweet for this year's returning players.
 
"We've been 1-7 against SPU in the last eight games," Vaughn points out. "I'm so proud of my guys tonight. To get a win like this was just huge. The preparation was there. The coaches did a great job on the scout. We played really hard and defense won this game."
 
CWU, which led 31-24 at halftime, started the second half on a 12-8 run, to take an 11-point lead, 43-32, on a thunderous rebound slam dunk by Joseph Stroud.
 
"We upped the defensive intensity from the first half," Vaughn explains of the fast second half start. "They're a very good team executing in the half court. We knew if we could disrupt them we'd have success."
 
SPU managed to battle back to within three, at 51-48, with 6:51 remaining, but could get no closer than that.


Of that comeback attempt, Sparling said, "When they made a little run at the end, we did some nice things to take care of that. I thought our guys did a nice job following the game plan."
 
The Falcons were led by center Cory Hutsen, who scored 21 points, and forward Matt Borton, from Yakima, who had a double-double with 18 points and 14 rebounds.
 
Next up for CWU will be home non-conference action against Quest University Canada Friday, December 12, with tipoff scheduled for 7 p.m. in Nicholson Pavilion.