BELLINGHAM, Wash. – Playing without two of its top three scorers, Simon Fraser University lost 101-64 to rival Western Washington University Tuesday evening in a Great Northwest Athletic Conference men's basketball game at Whatcom Pavilion.
The Vikings improved to 7-4 overall and are off to a 2-1 start in GNAC play. Simon Fraser drops to 1-8 overall and 0-3 in conference games. Western has won 14 of the last 15 meetings vs. the Clan.

Simon Fraser was led by 17 points from JJ. Pankratz and 12 points from Hidde Vos. But the Clan played without two of their top players, Max Barkley (17.3 ppg) and Oshea Gairey (11.0 ppg). Both players missed the game to prepare for final exams on Wednesday.

Senior guard Kyle Impero scored a game-high 23 points to lead the Vikings. He was 9-for-10 from the field. Impero led three Vikings in double-digits scoring, with forward Jeffrey Parker scoring 22 points and guard Brett Kingma adding 19 points (5 3-pointers).

Overall the Vikings shot 52.9% from the field compared to 40.4% for the Clan. WWU out-rebounded SFU 43-25.

The Vikings trailed early 17-10, but went on a 14-4 run to gain the lead at 24-21 and never looked back. Western ended the first half on a 36-19 run to take a 10 point lead at 46-36. Impero led all players with 16 points on 7-for-8 shooting while Vos and Pankratz each scored 10 points for SFU in the first period.

WWU picked up right where they left off in the first half, opening the second half with an 11-2 run to extend the lead to 19 points at 57-38. The Vikings led by as many as 40 points at 97-57 with 2:06 remaining in the game before closing out the 37-point victory.

Simon Fraser is back in action Dec. 29 at the University of Victoria for an exhibition game.
 
--@SFUClan--