Monday, November 15, 2021

PORTLAND, Ore. – Seattle Pacific and Western Washington have been the GNAC’s undisputed top two teams all season long. As it turns out, they’re officially the top two teams in the entire West Region as well.

The GNAC champion Falcons are the No. 1 seed in the West Regional for the NCAA Division II Women’s Soccer Championship, while Western Washington followed as the No. 2 seed. Both teams will have a first-round bye and will host second-round matches on Saturday. If they both win, the Falcons and Vikings would battle for the fourth time this season in the third round.

Point Loma, the region’s No. 3 seed, will face No. 6 seed Cal St. East Bay in a first-round match to be played Thursday at Western Washington. The Vikings will meet the winner in the second round at Harrington Field in Bellingham at 1 p.m. Point Loma and WWU previously played to a 1-1 draw in Bellingham back on Sept. 20.

On the other side of the regional bracket, No. 4 seed Sonoma State will face No. 5 Hawaii Hilo on Thursday at Interbay Stadium in Seattle. The winner of that match will face the top-seeded Falcons on Saturday at 2 p.m.

Should WWU and SPU both win on Saturday, the two teams will face each other in a third round match to be played on either December 3 or 4 at a site to be determined. The two teams last met in the West Region in 2015 with Western Washington winning 1-0 in the regional semifinals.

It wasn’t all good news on Selection Monday for the GNAC, however, as Northwest Nazarene was not selected to the NCAA tournament. The Nighthawks entered the week ranked fifth in the NCAA’s West Region rankings, but were hurt by a 3-1 semifinal loss in the GNAC Championships to WWU and the postseason run of Cal St. East Bay, who stormed to the California Collegiate Athletics Association (CCAA) tournament title as the No. 3 seed, unexpectedly stealing one of the six West Region bids.