Wednesday, November 12, 2014

PORTLAND, Ore. – The GNAC doesn’t have a men’s soccer tournament, but three schools are making up for that in the first and second round of the NCAA tournament.

GNAC champions Seattle Pacific received the No. 1 overall seed in Super Region IV and earned a first round bye. SPU will host the winner of the first round match between familiar foes Northwest Nazarene and Simon Fraser.

NNU and SFU moved up one spot each in the last week of the regional rankings and were selected as a four and five seeds respectively.

This put all three GNAC teams on the same side of the bracket, meaning the conference will be guaranteed a spot in the Regional championship game.

Northwest Nazarene and Simon Fraser play on Thursday at 3 p.m. Pacific at Interbay Stadium in Seattle.

The Clan handed NNU its first home loss of the season just a few short weeks ago, avenging a 3-2 loss to the Crusaders in the third week of conference play.

GNAC Player of the Year Jovan Blagojevic scored the matches only goal against the defensive Player of the Year in NNU’s Alfredo E. Ontiveros. That was one of only four goals Ontiveros gave up in the second half of the season.

These two teams currently hold the conferences longest winning streaks and have won a combined 25 matches.

SPU held the conferences longest winning streak this year at 13 matches and went unbeaten until the 16th game of the season when it suffered its only loss of the season to NNU.

The host team will face the winner of the NNU/SFU match on Saturday at 7 p.m. in Interbay Stadium with the winner having bragging rights as the unofficial “GNAC tournament” champions.

The winner of Saturday’s match-up will advance to the regional championship game against either the PacWest’s Azusa Pacific or the California Collegiate Athletic Association’s Cal State L.A. or UC San Diego.

At Seattle: Thursday - #4 Northwest Nazarene (14-3-1) vs. #5 Simon Fraser (11-4-2), 3 p.m. Saturday - NNU/SFU winner vs. #1 Seattle Pacific (15-1-2), 7 p.m.

At Azusa: Thursday - #3 Cal State L.A. (13-3-1) vs. #6 UC San Diego (9-4-5), 7 p.m. Saturday - CSLA/UCSD winner vs. #2 Azusa Pacific (14-2), 7:30 p.m.

Other Notes:

• All-conference teams were selected on Monday and Seattle Pacific led all schools with 11 players chosen to one of the three teams. SPU coach Mark Collings also was picked as co-Coach of the Year. Western Washington and Northwest Nazarene were second with seven players.

• NNU took home four awards in conference voting Monday including Coe Michaelson being voted as co-Coach of the Year and Julio Castillo Newcomer of the Year. The Crusaders Yannick Petzschke was also chosen as Freshman of the Year.

• Thursday’s and Saturday’s matches will not be broadcasted, but live stats will be available at SPUFalcons.com and GNACsports.com.
   
• With the last selections of the 2014 GNAC season, NNU's Fredy Razo was chosen as the GNAC offensive Player of the Week. Simon Fraser's Brandon Watson and Saint Martin's JJ Olson were chosen as co-defensive Players of the Week.