BELLINGHAM, Wash. – Despite a strong fight against the defending Division II national champions, the Simon Fraser University men's basketball team fell to the third-ranked Western Washington University Vikings, 67-56 in Saturday's season finale.

"I was really happy with the effort today and the discipline on offence," said Head Coach James Blake. "We did a great job on the glass. Western Washington is such a good team that any flaws you have they're going to attack. They're just very good. They've got 10 kids that can really play and I think they will go very far into the tournament."

The game was played in front of a crowd of 1,780, and was seen across the United States on CBS Sports Network.

The Clan were led by Taylor Dunn (Vancouver, WA) who earned 21 points. Anto Olah (Gold Coast, AUS) also hit double-digits scoring 12 while shooting eight for nine from the free throw line.

Ibrahim Appiah (Montreal, QC) led the team in rebounds, grabbing 13, and chipped in eight points.

Paul Jones led the Vikings' victory with 19 points and nine rebounds. Guard John Allen added 11 points.

The Clan forced 14 turnovers in the game while committing only nine and they out rebounded the top team in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference 18-6 on offensive rebounds.

The first twenty minutes of the contest was a tough battle as the lead was exchanged 12 times.

Less than three minutes into the game, Simon Fraser gained their first lead of the half off of a layup from Elijah Matthews (Washington, DC) which put the team up 4-2.

With 9:52 on the clock until halftime, Western Washington used an 8-2 run to earn a five point edge, leading the Clan 17-12.

A converted three-pointer from Dillion Hamilton (Vancouver, BC) snapped the Vikings' run and ignited an 8-0 run which gave SFU a three-point lead with 6:56 remaining in the half.

The final minutes until the break continued to be back and forth play. Thanks to a last second layup from Matt Staudacher (Vancouver, WA), the Clan took a 30-28 lead into the locker rooms.

Simon Fraser came into the second half strong as they started play on a converted jumper from Dunn to give the team a four point lead, 32-28 however, that was the last time the Clan would own the lead.

Western Washington answered SFU's strong start with a 8-0 run to grab a 36-32 edge with 16:08 to go.
 
With 3:36 was left to play, a tip-in from Appiah followed by a steal and converted layup from Dunn brought the Clan within two of Vikings, 54-52.

But, a late 7-0 WWU run put SFU down nine with 52 seconds remaining. The visiting team was not able to mount a last second comeback, resulting in the 11 points loss.
 
The loss brings the Clan's 2012-13 season to an end with a 1-17 record in the GNAC and 6-20 record overall.

"This year was a little bit of a disappointment from my stand point. I really thought we were going to make some moves forward into the 12 or 13 win range. With the players we had coming back I thought we were going to be better. We had a tough month of January and it kind of rolled over into February. We've got some good players coming back though. Next year will be our fourth year and our guys need to spend the spring and summer getting ready for it," finished Blake.