BELLINGHAM – The Wildcats men’s basketball team had a hard time getting shots to fall as the CWU team dropped their second to last game of the season to Western Washington University who took the game 90-73.  

"We did not defend at the level we needed to tonight. Western is a potent offensive team and the hottest team in the West Region. It was going to take a better effort than that to give ourselves a chance to beat them on their home floor,” CWU head coach Brandon Rinta said.

Cavin Holden led the Wildcats in scoring with 23 total points in the Thursday match at Western. Bradley Swillie played well also, coming up second in scoring with 17 points for CWU. On the rebound side, Garrett Anderson had a strong performance with eight rebounds.

Both teams started the game strong, with Central having a slight edge and WWU trailing during the first 10 minutes, but that shifted after the Vikings' Louis Grante-Halliday dropped a pair of free throws, allowing WWU to take the lead 20-19. They then pushed forward and the score was 29-22 with WWU in the lead with a little over seven minutes left in the half. The score at half time was 46-39 in Western’s favor.  

During the second half, each team grabbed seven points in the first four minutes, then the Vikings hit a stride and went on a 13-2 run to build an 18-point lead.  

The Wildcats came back, though and pushed hard, trimming the lead to five points with 7:21 left in the half. They began losing team though, and WWU pushed in with a 10-2 run to build their lead back up. 

While the Wildcats were able to score four more points with free throws, WWU held their momentum and brought home the win. 

The Wildcats wrapped up their regular season on Saturday with a match against Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia. Tip-off was set for 7 p.m., and results of that game were not available as of press time. Meanwhile, the Vikings were set to host Northwest Nazarene at that same time.