BELLINGHAM, Wash. – Saint Martin's secured the regular season sweep of Western Washington with a 75-71 victory over the Vikings.
 
Branden Bunn led the scoring for the Saints with 18 points and was active on the defense end with a team-high of three steals. Jaden Nielsen Skinner showed why he is one of the best point guards in the GNAC and D-II with an impressive stat line of 13 points and 11 assists for his first double-double of the season. Hunter Sipe joined the party and posted his first double-double of the season as well with 10 points and 10 rebounds. Kyle Greeley rounded up the double-digit scorers with 12 points.
 
The Saints (16-4, 8-2 GNAC) came out with the starting lineup of Nielsen-Skinner, Bunn, Greeley, Sipe, and Shakeem Alcindor. Nielsen-Skinner got fouled driving to the basket and converted at the charity stripe to score the first two points of the night for Saint Martin's. WWU (11-9, 4-6 GNAC) used a 13-3 run to break the stalemate and jump ahead of the Saints 23-15 with just under 10 minutes left in the half. Saint Martin's weathered the storm and responded with a 9-0 run to erase the deficit and tie the game up 35-35 with just over a minute left the half. SMU went into the half trailing the Vikings by one possession, 40-38.
 
Branden Bunn opened the second half with a transition three, followed up by another long ball by Hunter Sipe. Around the 14-minute mark, SMU jumped out to a 14-7 run to put them up 62-56 with nine minutes left in the contest. Western Washington cut the deficit to one point later in the half but Saint Martin's defense held strong and Bunn scored seven of SMU's final 11 points to secure the 75-71 victory
 
Head coach Aaron Landon reflected on the road win with, "It's been a really emotional week, and I'm grateful for how our guys battled tonight. We did a wonderful job defending in the second half against a very good team. Our guys did the simple things at a high level and it won us a big road game". Landon also reflected on the passing of former athletic director Bob Grisham with, "Tonight's game was for Bob, he was a graduate assistant at Western as a young coach, he's been in our thoughts and in our heart this week."
 
The Saints will be heading across the border to face Simon Fraser on Saturday, January 28th at 7 PM. Live stats and video will be available on smusaints.com.