ELLENSBURG, Wash. – The Central Washington University men's basketball team lost to Western Washington University 72-85 infront of 2,462 fans inside Nicholson Pavilion Thursday night.
 
The loss is the eighth straight for the Wildcats who fall to 12-11 on the season, and 7-10 in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference.  Western Washington improves to 20-5 on the season and 14-3 in GNAC play, and sits atop the GNAC standings.
 
 Dom Hunter led the Wildcats with 24 points on 9 of 19 shooting including 3 of 5 from long range.  Fuquan Niles recorded a double-double with 14 points and 14 rebounds.
 
As a team, the Wildcats shot 37.5 percent from the field and connected on 7 of 23 shots from three-point territory.  In comparison, Western shot 46.2 percent from the field, and was 7 of 24 from beyond the arc.
 
The Vikings held a considerable advantage in rebounds with 46 to the Wildcats 38, and the WWU bench outscored CWU 28-15.
 
Vikings point guard Taylor Stafford led all scorers with 32 points, followed by Deandre Dixon who had 17 points and 12 rebounds.
 
Western Washington jumped out to an early 8-2 lead before the Wildcats used a 5-0 run to close the margin to just one.  The Vikings pushed its lead to 13 on a Dickson triple with 11:01 to go in the half, but a 23-9 run by the Wildcats gave the home team its first and only lead of the game with 3:18 to play in the period.  Western finished the half on a 6-0 run to regain the advantage and enter halftime up 38-33.
 
In the second half, the Wildcats pulled to with three points on a triple by Dom Hunter with 16:45 to go, however, that is as close as the game would get.  The Vikings led by as many as 16 points in the second half en route to the 85-72 victory.
 
The Wildcats return to action this Saturday, for its final home contest of the season against Simon Fraser at 7 p.m.  It is senior day for CWU, who will be honoring Dom Hunter, Chris-Michael Garret, and Terry Dawn who will be playing their final home game of their collegiate careers.