Saturday, November 15, 2014

ELLENSBURG, Wash. - Northwest Nazarene officially claimed the 2014 Great Northwest Athletic Conference volleyball title Saturday night, overcoming a 2-1 set deficit to defeat Central Washington, 27-29, 25-13, 19-25, 25-20, 15-10, at Nicholson Pavilion.

The Crusaders clinched a tie for the conference title and the GNAC's automatic berth in the NCAA West Regionals last week, but Saturday's victory earned NNU the title outright, its first in the 14-year history of the conference.

Three times previous the Crusaders have finished third - in 2007 when they made there only previous NCAA West Region appearance, in 2008 and again last year.

Andrea Terpstra and Madi Farrell keyed Saturday's win at CWU with 21 and 20 kills, respectively.  Terpstra also had 11 blocks as Division 2's top blocking team, rejected 18 CWU attempts.

Both Terpstra and Farrell hit for high percentages.  Farrell had a .516 percentage (20-4-31) and Terpstra hit for a .415 average (21-4-41).

As it turned out, NNU really didn't need the win to claim the GNAC title as second-place Alaska Anchorage lost to third-place Western Washington Saturday night in Anchorage in a five-set match by scores of 23-25, 25-22, 25-23, 13-25, 17-15.  Kelsey Moore keyed the Viking win with 23 points.

Alaska Anchorage (21-5), Western Washington (21-6) and Central Washington (19-7) all figure to receive at-large berths and join Northwest Nazarene (24-2) in the NCAA regional which begins Thursday.

The NCAA will announce the eight-team field and the site for the regional Sunday night at 7 p.m. Pacific in a web cast on ncaa.com. 

Generally the top-ranked team - a position NNU held prior to this weekend - earns the right to host the regional.  No GNAC team in the 14-year history of the conference has ever hosted the regional.