Wednesday, October 22, 2014

PORTLAND, Ore. – Western Washington was selected first in the inaugural NCAA Division II West Region rankings on Wednesday.

The rankings decide the at-large bids for the NCAA tournament first-round West Regional. The GNAC, PacWest and the California Collegiate Athletic Conference all earn automatic qualifiers through tournament championships.

Three more at-large bids will be chosen from the top three teams in the NCAA West Region rankings that didn’t automatically qualify.

The Vikings are ranked 20th by the National Soccer Coaches Association of America. WWU has yet to lose this season and have clinched a spot in the GNAC postseason tournament.

Last year, Western Washington was ranked third in the first rankings and eventually became a two-seed in the NCAA tournament where it hosted the first three rounds of the tournament before losing in the national semifinals.

With one spot already claimed by the Vikings in the GNAC tournament, the other three seeds will most likely be decided within the last week of conference play.

Montana State Billings, Central Washington and Western Oregon are very much still alive for positioning. Northwest Nazarene is in the hunt with 10 points too, but needs a little help to put itself back into contention.

Seattle Pacific has a chance to secure its spot in the tournament this week with a win and Western Oregon loss.

SPU still has regular season conference title hopes alive also as it takes on Western Washington Thursday for what could prove to be the pivotal matchup for the championship.

With a win, SPU would put itself within one game of the conference leader. WWU would all but seal its chances for the regular season title with a win, going up nine points in the standings with three matches to go.

The two teams tied their only other match up this season in a 1-1 draw in Seattle.

Western Oregon and Montana State Billings play each other on Saturday for another crucial match for the GNAC tournament as well. The two teams play Northwest Nazarene and Saint Martin’s respectively on Thursday.

WOU is currently four points behind MSUB and Central Washington for the fourth playoff spot.

Central travels to Simon Fraser on Thursday before taking the pitch against Western Washington in Bellingham on Saturday.

Other Notes:

• Western Washington re-enters the NSCAA Top 25 poll after being omitted from the poll last week.

• The 2014 GNAC Championship tournament will be held November 6-8 at the Starfire Sports Complex in Tukwila, WA.
   
• Catherine Miles of Western Washington earned GNAC offensive Player of the Week while Kayla Lipston of Central Washington and Katherine Miccile of Western Washington shared the defensive honor.