MONMOUTH, Ore. -- Azusa Pacific closed out the first half of Friday's NCAA Division II West Regional first-round game against Seattle Pacific with a 16-0 run over the final 5:37 before halftime, catapulting the fifth-seeded Cougars to a 12-point halftime lead and an eventual 77-66 win over fourth-seeded Seattle Pacific.

Sophomore forward Corey Langerveld scored a team-high 17 points to lead the Cougars to the victory, which avenged a 17-point regular-season road defeat to Seattle Pacific. Langerveld was held scoreless in that early-season meeting, which the Cougars played without the services of two regulars from its normal 10-player rotation.

Now back to full strength, Azusa Pacific is 23-8 overall and advances to Saturday's regional semifinals to take on the winner of the final first-round matchup between top-seeded host Western Oregon and eighth-seeded Humboldt State. The victory also represented the Cougars' 11th straight win in a revenge situation, a streak which dates back to the 2013-14 campaign.

Midway through the first half, Mitch Penner and Gilles Dierickx scored all 11 points of an 11-4 Seattle Pacific run to give the Falcons a 24-20 lead with just under six minutes left in the first half. However, on the next possession, Penner went to the bench after picking up his second foul, and a LyDell Cardwell three-pointer just moments later set off a 16-0 run to close out the first half. Sophomore forward Petar Kutlesic provided the exclamation point, taking a three-quarters court inbounds pass with 2.4 seconds left for a turnaround buzzer-beating two-point jumper that sent the Cougars into halftime with a 36-24 edge.

Seattle Pacific scored six of the first eight points after halftime with Penner back in the lineup scoring four of the Falcons' six, but Langerveld answered with a three-pointer to spark a 9-2 run that pushed the lead back to 15 points, 47-32, with 14:38 remaining in the game. Another 9-2 SPU run in the middle of the half cut the lead to seven at 53-46, but senior guard Bruce English scored a layup in transition and Cardwell scored six points as the Cougars responded with an 11-2 run of their own to push the lead to 64-48 with just over four minutes left.

The Cougars led by at least 12 points the rest of the way until Penner cut the final margin to 11 with less than 10 seconds left in the game.

Cardwell contributed 14 points on five-of-seven shooting off the bench, leading Azusa Pacific to a 37-13 advantage in bench scoring, and freshman point guard Connor Peterson, who missed the early-season meeting with SPU, added 11 points on just four field-goal attempts. All 10 Cougars who played in the game contributed in the scoring column, and all 10 saw at least 14 minutes of action, including senior forward Jared Zoller, who was also absent in the first Seattle Pacific meeting of the year and contributed seven points off the bench.

Seattle Pacific was led by Penner's 19 points, and Bryce Leavitt tallied 14 points to go with game-highs of 13 rebounds and five assists. Dierickx added 10 points and six rebounds for the Falcons, who finish the season with a 22-9 overall record.