LACEY, Wash. – No. 3 seed Western Oregon University (18-13) surrendered a late 7-0 run that proved untimely as the top-seeded Western Washington Vikings (25-5) won the 2017 GNAC Championship on Saturday night with a 71-69 victory in the title game at Marcus Pavilion on the campus of Saint Martin's University.
 
Junior guard Demetrius Trammel paced the Wolves with a career-high 33 points. Western Washington, the league's regular season champions, also got 33 points from tournament MVP Taylor Stafford, including 18 in the second half.
 
Western Oregon, the No. 10 team in the last NCAA West Region rankings, got 16 points in the second half from junior guard Ali Faruq-Bey and junior forward Tanner Omlid added 12 points, six rebounds and three assists.  
 
Western Washington was hot out of the gates hitting three of their first four shots to take a 7-2 lead. Trammell scored the Wolves' next 14 points and 21 of the team's next 23 points with five 3-pointers to as lead by as many as four points.
 
The Vikings ramped up their defensive intensity holding the Western Oregon without a field goal for the final 8:51 of the first half and took a 36-28 lead into the halftime break.
 
Western Washington connected on 14 of 30 tries from the field (46 percent) while hitting 4 of 8 from 3-point range. Stafford led the Vikings with 15 points going 6 of 11 overall and 3 of 4 from distance.
 
Trammell's 21 points in the first half matched his highest point total to date (Dec. 29 against Central Washington) on 6 of 11 shooting. He made 5 of 7 attempts from the 3-point arc and was 4 of 4 from the foul line.
 
The Wolves attacked the rim after an early triple from senior guard Evan Garrison going on a 10-2 run over the 2:34 of the second half to cut WWU's lead to one, 38-37. Western Washington continued to lead by as many as five in the back-and-forth affair.
 
Trammell hit a jump shot sparking a 7-3 spurt that included a pair of Omlid charity shot makes and the final of seven triples for Trammell in the game. Faruq-Bey hit the team's final field goal with a lay-in off the glass after Omlid stole the ball away in the WWU frontcourt.
 
With 2:31 left, Omlid connected twice more from the stripe to give Western Oregon a 67-63 lead. Stafford led a 7-2 closing spurt scoring five points, including a split pair of free throws with 10 seconds left to make it a two –point game.
 
Off Stafford's miss, Omlid corralled the rebound and the Wolves pushed it quickly into the scoring zone. Two passes found sophomore guard Malik Leaks open on the right-wing for a potential game winning 3-pointer. His shot caromed off the rim into the hands of a Viking defender to seal the championship win for WWU.