Tuesday, September 16, 2014

PORTLAND, Ore. –  A condensed Great Northwest Athletic Conference league campaign gets underway tonight with four matches  including an early season showdown between Western Washington and Alaska Anchorage, which were picked to finish 1-2 in the GNAC Coaches pre-season poll.

The Seawolves (6-2) and Vikings (7-2) take to the court tonight at Bellingham.  Elsewhere, Alaska (0-8) visits Simon Fraser (6-2), Western Oregon (2-6) plays at Montana State Billings (5-3) and Saint Martin’s (2-8) opens at Seattle Pacific (6-2).

The two teams that have the best records in the GNAC going into the conference slate – Central Washington (7-1) and Northwest Nazarene (7-1) – are idle before opening their conference schedules against each other Thursday in Nampa.

The GNAC season is condensed this fall – from 10 weeks to nine – due to the NCAA Falls Sports Festival which will be held in Louisville the first week of December.

Thus, GNAC teams will combine “three weeks into two”, playing contests this week on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday and next week on Monday, Thursday and Saturday.

Western Washington opens its league schedule as the No. 10 ranked team in NCAA Division II.   The Vikings slipped one spot after winning three of four matches last weekend in the GNAC/PacWest Challenge at Riverside.

Leading the Vikings is libero Samantha Hutchinson who tops Division II in digs averaging 6.83 per set.   She needs 83 this week to become the fourth player in GNAC history to record 2000 career digs.

Central Washington is ranked 11^th – up two spots this week – after also winning three of four at Riverside.

Northwest Nazarene and Alaska Anchorage are among “others receiving votes” in this week’s AVCA poll.

The Crusaders posted a perfect 4-0 record at the GNAC/PacWest Challenge in Riverside, a record only matched by Fresno Pacific in the San Rafael portion.  NNU is  28^th overall in the AVCA poll.

Alaska Anchorage posted a 3-1 record last weekend at Riverside and is 34^th overall in the AVCA poll.

GNAC teams take a combined 48-35 record into conference play after posting a 20-12 mark in the two GNAC/PacWest tournaments.

That record is the best-ever for the GNAC in non-conference play, bettering its 47-36 in 2012.

GNAC teams finished their non-conference slates with a 22-13 record against PacWest teams after going 9-19 last year.  They ended up 10-8 against the CCAA.

From Redshirt to League Leader

From redshirt to league leader. 

That was the story for Alaska Anchorage middle blocker Kayla McGlathery last weekend.

McGlathery (MB, 6-0, So., Coeur d’Alene, ID – Texas A&M-Kingsville) was set to redshirt this season and sat out all four of UAA’s matches Sept. 4-6 in the UAA Spring Hills Suite Invitational.

But, coach Chris Green removed her redshirt last weekend. 

Smart move as it turned out as McGlathery had a team-high 26 blocks and finished the week ranked first in the GNAC in blocks per set averaging 1.62. 

That earned her GNAC Defensive Player of the Week honors.