For 20 minutes, Northwest Nazarene looked like it was going to hang around and have a chance to pull off the upset of Point Loma in the opening round of the West Region Tournament, but the Sea Lions pulled away with 50 points in the second half to take a 78-64 win and end the Nighthawks’ run.

“They’re a really talented team, but I think we did a great job on them defensively, honestly,” said Northwest Nazarene coach Paul Rush. “Minus fouling at the end, we had them under 70 points. But they’re still really hard to stop, they’re so well coached offensively and have such talented guys.”

The Nighthawks (15-15) needed to win three games in three days last week at the GNAC Tournament in Bellingham, Washington just to get into the NCAA Tournament. Northwest Nazarene entered the conference tournament as the sixth and final seed. Wins against Seattle Pacific, Montana State-Billings and Saint Martin’s earned the Nighthawks with the league’s automatic bid.

The reward was a game against the Sea Lions (28-3) — who picked up their 24th straight win Friday — in their home gym in San Diego. And while things fell apart over the final 20 minutes, it still marked the second time in three seasons Northwest Nazarene qualified for the NCAA Tournament, something Rush said earlier this week he hopes become the new standard in Nampa.

“I think we’re headed in the right direction as a program,” Rush reiterated after Friday’s loss. “I think we can keep building on what we were able to do two years ago and then this year. … The NCAA Tournament is not easy to get back to, our conference is really tough. I think we’re going to keep the standard, because that’s what we want to do, hit it every year.”

Northwest Nazarene got out to just the start it wanted, leading 8-0 behind a pair of 3-pointers by Ryzin Bergersen in the first two minutes of the game.

The Nighthawks held the lead for the first 14 minutes of the game, until Point Loma went on a 10-0 run to pull ahead 25-21. The Nighthawks were able to pull even at 25, but the Sea Lions took a 28-25 halftime lead with Brian Goracke 3-pointer with less than 30 seconds left in the first half.

“Offensively we started really strong and we were doing well defensively,” Rush said. “They switched up what they were doing defensively and it made us struggle a little more on the offensive end. We had built a solid offensive lead and they cut back into it.”

Point Loma never gave up that lead in the second half as the Sea Lions began building a lead in the early stages of the second half. A 3-pointer by Goracke sparked a 10-1 run, which put Point Loma ahead 45-32 with 14 minutes to play.

“We burned through a couple timeouts in that stretch and were trying some different patterns substituting there,” said Rush. “We had some good looks, I needed to do a better job putting our guys in better positions offensively to score. In the second half, we were struggling to find out what that was.”

Still, the Nighthawks fought their way back into the game, with a Jaylen Fox 3-pointer with 10 minutes left cutting the Point Loma lead to 47-42. But that was as close as the Nighthawks were able to cut it, as the Sea Lions, who were averaging more than 80 points per game this season, shot 60% (15 of 25) from the field in the second half.

Point Loma, which had also beat Northwest Nazarene 69-54 earlier in the season, shot just over 40 percent (33 of 81) in its other three halves against the Nighthawks this season, combined.

“Their guards got really comfortable getting to the paint,” Rush said. “We were really focused on trying to limit (forward) Kaden Anderson and their guards responded really well. We were a little late on some stuff defensively, and that hurt us and let them find a rhythm.”

Bergersen led Northwest Nazarene with 19 points, while Gabe Murphy finished with 14 and Tru Allen had 11. Aaron Murphy led the Nighthawks with nine rebounds, while Allen had five assists.