Laie, HI—Junior guard Junior Ale drained a three-pointer from well behind the line as the buzzer sounded to give the Brigham Young University Hawaii men’s basketball team its first win of the season, 66-65, over Alaska-Fairbanks tonight. Ale, who was 0-3 from behind the arc prior to the final shot, took an inside-out pass from Brady Hurst on the right wing and coolly dropped it in from NBA range for the win as the Seasiders improved to 1-4 for the season.
BYU-Hawaii started the game as if it was going to be a rout. The Seasiders shot out to a 24-9 lead less than nine minutes into the game. However, the Nanooks battled back to cut the deficit to ten at the half, 40-30, on a buzzer-beating three pointer by Stefan Tica.
Alaska-Fairbanks continued the comeback after intermission and finally caught the Seasiders at 52-52 with 9:40 to play in the game. The Nanooks took the lead a minute later at 54-53 and held the lead until Ale’s shot. The Seasiders trailed 64-62 when Jet Chang had a chance to tie the game with 30 seconds left but he missed the front end of a one-and-one free throw opportunity. Chang had another chance to tie it with seven seconds left but made just the second of two free throws. BYU-Hawaii fouled Dominique Brinson with 4.7 seconds to play but Brinson made just the second of two free throws to set up Ale’s game-winner. Chang took the inbounds pass down the floor and got the ball into a closely guarded Hurst on the left block. Hurst quickly threw the ball out to Ale, who was unguarded, and Ale closed out the game.
Chang scored 24 points to lead the Seasiders. Hurst dropped in 16 and pulled down eight rebounds to go with three assists. Bracken Funk chipped in 11 points and eight rebounds and Zach Ngawaka came off the bench to grab six rebounds and had out three assists. Ale finished with five assists and six rebounds to go with his five points.
Alaska-Fairbanks, now 1-6 for the season, was led by Jarrett Miller with 20 points and six assists and Sergej Pucar with seven rebounds.
BYU-Hawaii will play Long Beach State on Friday at 7:00 pm PST in Long Beach.
TOT-FG 3-PT REBOUNDS
## Player Name FG-FGA FG-FGA FT-FTA OF DE TOT PF TP A TO BLK S MIN
23 Chang, Tsung-Hsien.. * 7-15 3-5 7-13 0 4 4 3 24 2 1 0 2 35