NO. 1 HAWAII PACIFIC WOMEN'S BASKETBALL | Roster | Stats | Schedule
NO. 5 BIOLA WOMEN'S BASKETBALL | Roster | Stats | Schedule

AZUSA, Calif. --- After winning its PacWest Tournament Quarterfinal in dramatic fashion on Thursday afternoon, Head Coach Alan Nakamura's team will return to the Felix Event Center on Friday to take on No. 1 seed Hawaii Pacific University. 

Friday's game is scheduled for a 2:45 p.m. tip-off and will be held at the Felix Event Center in Azusa. General admission for the tournament is $12 and pre-sale tickets are available for purchase online, for both general admission single tickets and all-tournament passes. Fans can purchase tickets online if they wish and print them at home to present at the door. 

Student tickets are available for $5, cash only at the door. Children 12 and under receive free admission.

Hawaii Pacific comes into its first game of the tournament ranked the No. 3 team in NCAA DII Women's Basketball. The Sharks posted an undefeated record in PacWest play and had six end of year recognitions from the conference, including a Coach of the Year award for Reid Takatsuka and Player of the Year Honors for sophomore guard Amy Baum. 

HPU comes into its game against the Eagles with four starters and a reserve averaging 10 points or more per game. And the Sharks are the consensus best shooting team in the PacWest, leading the conference in every offensive and shooting category listed on thepacwest.com. 

But remember that Biola held HPU to 58 points and would have beaten the Sharks in Honolulu earlier this year if not for an outstanding buzzer beater from Starr Rivera. Jazz Benn also scored a career-high 27 points during the teams' last meeting in Chase Gym. But the Eagles will need to do everything they can to make sure they get traction defensively a lot earlier in the semifinal than they did in their last game against HPU. 

Hawaii Pacific went 10-for-15 from the field in the first quarter of their 72-60 win over Biola on February 15 and built a nine-point lead after just 10 minutes. But oddly enough, the Eagles have done a good job in both games of defending PacWest Player of the Year Amy Baum and have limited her to 5.5 points per game. It was the other members of the starting five that made the difference from one game to the next this season: HPU's starters outside of Baum scored 40 points in the one-point win but 56 points in the 72-60 win. 

The Eagles have had two big scoring games against the Sharks with Tatum Brimley going for 21 points in Hawaii and Benn's aforementioned 27 point game in La Mirada. But if they need to keep up a high-scoring pace with the Sharks, Biola will need to emphasize distributing the ball and making the extra pass to get multiple women involved in the offense. 

Nakamura's group has scored 80 points or more five times this season, and got close to that mark in Thursday's quarterfinal win. But only one woman has ever scored 20 points or more in those big scoring nights for the Eagles: Stephanie Lee when she dropped 26 against Point Loma in an 81-73 win. 

The Eagles will come into Friday's game with the intention of shaking up the PacWest pecking order. Tip-off is scheduled for 2:45 p.m. PT, following the other semifinal game between Fresno Pacific and Azusa Pacific. The game will be streamed live at https://portal.stretchinternet.com/pacwest/. Complimentary live stats will also be published at https://portal.stretchinternet.com/pacwest/.