Wednesday, October 8, 2014

PORTLAND, Ore. – Three teams are fighting for second place in the GNAC while trying to keep pace with conference leader Western Washington.

Montana State Billings and Seattle Pacific each went 1-1 last week while Central Washington gained a big win and a tie to create a deadlock in the second spot.

Central Washington had back-to-back shutouts the last two matches, gaining four points in the standings. GNAC co-defensive Player of the Week Kayla Lipston made 11 saves against Seattle Pacific and six against Western Oregon for CWU, which now ranks second in the conference in shutouts with three.

Montana State Billings shutout Northwest Nazarene while Seattle Pacific beat Saint Martin’s 2-1 on a second half goal for the teams only wins last week.

All three teams are sitting at 10 points at the halfway point of the season.

MSUB will have the best chance to possibly break the tie this week as it plays both Seattle Pacific and Central Washington. SPU and CWU will face 2-3-1 Northwest Nazarene along with MSUB.

While three teams battle for the second spot, Western Washington is trying to pull away from the pack.

With two more 1-0 victories last week, the No. 19 team in this week’s NSCAA poll continues to use its dominate defense to win games.

Western Washington is now first in the nation in team goals against average and is tied for first in shutout percentage. The team also ranks second nationally in save percentage and win-loss-tie percentage.

Goalie Ashley Haden has only given up two goals all year and one of those was an “own” goal. Haden ranks third in the nation in goals against average and ninth in save percentage.

Western Washington will travel to Western Oregon on Thursday and Saint Martin’s on Saturday.

Other Notes:

Montana State Billings held NNU without a shot in Thursday's match. This is the fifth time in GNAC history a team has held its opponent to zero shots, a feat which has happened only two other times since 2002.

Western Oregon’s Amanda Rose Johnson, the co-defensive Player of the Week, stopped 17 shots in two shutouts last week to move into second all-time in career shutouts at WOU with 13.