NAMPA, Idaho (Nov. 17) – The Central Washington University volleyball team lost in straight sets to Northwest Nazarene Tuesday evening by scores of 22-25, 20-25, 25-27.
The Wildcats fall to 19-7 one the season and 14-4 in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference. Northwest Nazarene improves to 18-9 and is tied with CWU with a 15-4 conference mark.
The matchup pitted to two top blocking teams in the nation, with each club averaging 2.90 blocks per set. The Wildcats won the blocking battle 12-7 but were outhit by the Crusaders .184 to .252.
"We just didn't create enough chances defensively and NNU produced more kills off of defense that we did, and that was the story," CWU Head Coach
Mario Andaya said. "We blocked ok, but NNU is used to a big block in practice everyday and they handled it better than we did. We relied on our block more than we should have and became complacent on defense."
Madison Weg was the Wildcats most reliable hitter on the night with seven kills while hitting .438, but was the only CWU player to hit over .200 on the night.
Linden Firethorne led the Wildcats with 12 kills;
Sabrina Wheelhouse and
Kiah Jones each added six.
After trailing in each of the first two set losses, the Wildcats held a 7-3 three in the third set off of a pair of kills from Weg and a big block by Jones and
Kaitlin Quirk. Central Washington held the lead for almost the entirety of the set and was within one point of claiming the set win at 24-20 forcing NNU to call a timeout.
A couple of attack errors by the Wildcats coupled with a set of kills by the Crusaders allowed NNU to tie the set at 24-24 before taking the set 27-25.
Elayna Rice and Taylor VanValey who had 10 and 14 kills, and hit .320 and .500, respectively, led the Crusaders.
Up next the Wildcats will play its final regular season contest when they host Montana State Billings this Saturday, Nov. 14 at 7 p.m.
The Wildcats entered this week ranked third in the West Region and a fourth consecutive trip to the NCAA West Regional Tournament is still likely.
Coach Andaya acknowledged that his team will have to play much better Saturday if they want to give themselves the best chance to extend their season. "We will learn from this and train accordingly to ensure that we are better come Saturday."
