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January 11, 2007 Bellingham, WA – Free throw shooting made all the difference as Saint Martin’s defeated Western Washington, 71-67, in a Great Northwest Athletic Conference contest Thursday night on Haggen Court at Sam Carver Gymnasium. With just under three minutes to play and the score was tied 60-60, Bill Richardson hit a free throw to put the Saints on top, where they would stay for the remainder of the game. SMU was able to build their lead to six but five made free throws by Western’s Ira Graham put the Vikings within one. With 21 seconds to go Jake Linton went to the line and hit both shots giving the Saints a three point advantage. Western missed two three-point attempts, and then Steve Alford was fouled with 1.2 seconds left on the clock. Alford made the first shot and intentionally missed the second. Brendan Campbell came down with the board, was fouled and made both free throws to account for the final. “We played really well together as a team tonight. We made the adjustments that we needed to make and it worked for us,” said Richardson. Both teams went to the line 26 times in the game. Saint Martin’s connected on 22 shots while Western hit 18. Saint Martin’s took a 28-25 lead into the break after a first half in which neither team was able to go ahead by more than four. Their biggest lead of the game came when they took a 39-31 lead with a little over 16 minutes to play but Western rallied to go up by two with 8:37 to go. Richardson led the Saints with 21 points and pulled down six boards. Linton added 13 points going 6-6 from the free throw line. Tyler Nixon had a team high eight rebounds and went 4-4 from the line. The Vikings beat SMU on the boards, 49-38, but committed twice as many turnovers with 14. “I really like how we defended tonight; the kids did a good job defending against Western. They played focused and energetic basketball the whole way tonight,” said head coach Keith Cooper. “Bill really played well tonight, Jake did a nice job running the team and we got some really good leadership from Brendan Campbell both on and off the floor.” It was the first time Saint Martin’s had beaten Western in the last nine meetings at Carver Gym. They last beat the Vikings in Bellingham on Dec. 3, 1998, claiming a 73-69 triumph. The Saints, who improved to 7-5 overall, 2-1 in conference, will head to Ellensburg to take on Central Washington University this Saturday.
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