NAMPA, Idaho – The Crusaders are closing on the best in the GNAC, they just haven't quite caught them yet.

The Northwest Nazarene volleyball team put up a good fight Saturday night, but a few small miscues provided the breaks No. 10 Western Washington needed to score a 25-21, 25-20, 25-18 win at the Johnson Sports Center.

"It was a little bit of hitting errors and a little bit of passing," NNU coach Doug English said of his team's Great Northwest Athletic Conference loss to one of the league leaders. "And they're a really good defensive team, so you take a lot of swings, and sometimes we just tried to do to much."

Leading to costly miscues against the Vikings, who limit their own errors so well, making them one of the country's best teams.

Three hitting errors by NNU (13-6 overall, 9-4 GNAC) allowed the Vikings to snap a 10-10 tie in the first set and pull out to a 17-11 lead that proved insurmountable.

Not that the Crusaders didn't try and rally, closing the gap to 23-21 on an Andrea Terpstra kill before WWU (17-3, 10-2 GNAC) finished off the opening win.

In the second set, the Crusaders held an 11-10 edge when back-to-back miscues sparked a small, 4-0 run by WWU, and from there the Vikings never let the lead slip away.

"They do a lot of smart things playing volleyball," English said of the Vikings, adding, "they tipped a lot of balls we didn't pick up, and in the long run rallies they were just able to keep balls in and we hit balls out."

Those little things again proved to be the difference in the third and final set, which saw the Crusaders snag a 14-11 lead.

But, three errors in the next six points allowed WWU to sneak in front, 16-15.

From there, the Top-10 Vikings made sure not to let the Crusaders rally as Jennica McPherson had four kills in the final 10 points to lead Western Washington to the victory.

McPherson led the Vikings with 10 kills and 11 digs in the win.

Jenna Caywood led the Crusaders with nine kills and Elayna Rice added eight kills and 12 digs.

Michelle Terpstra added 28 assists and made nine digs while Kaitlyn Tuholski, Taylor Roberts and Linnea Phillips each added 13 digs for NNU, which despite the loss, gained from the match.

"You have to be in matches like this to get better and we haven't been in a lot of matches like this," English said. "Sometimes you lose them, and you've got to go through some growing pains before you're great."

Next up, the Crusaders play at Seattle Pacific on Thursday.