Box Score



NAMPA, Idaho — Leave no doubt.

One of the famous lines from the movie "Remember The Titans" seems particularly fitting right about now after the 15^th-ranked Northwest Nazarene volleyball team completed a second straight sweep of a GNAC foe in a battle for first place.

The Great Northwest Athletic Conference leading Crusaders left little doubt, rolling past No. 9 Western Washington, 25-14, 25-15, 25-23, in front of nearly 1,000 fans at the Johnson Sports Center on the NNU campus Thursday night.

The win snapped a 10-match win streak for WWU in the head-to-head series, which last lost to NNU on Oct. 8, 2009, in Bellingham, Wash.

"We've been looking forward to these two matches," NNU head volleyball coach Doug English said of Thursday's win over the Vikings and a similar sweep at Alaska Anchorage on Saturday in the other first-place battle. "We played great, we executed great on Saturday and we played great tonight."

Crusader senior libero Taylor Roberts, who had never beaten WWU in her four-year career at NNU prior to Thursday, added: "There isn't a better feeling and it couldn't have come at a better time. This is just more than we could have ever expected."
 

Back-to-back straight-set wins against two of the best teams in the country — let alone the GNAC — might be too much to expect, but the Crusaders (20-2 overall, 13-1 GNAC) made it look easy Thursday, jumping in front 11-5 on an Andrea Terpstra kill in the first set and riding a wave of momentum to a commanding 15-6 edge on a Western Washington hitting error.

A tandem block by Andy Terpstra and Taylor VanValey finished off the first set, and the sweep had begun.

"Our effort on defense has been amazing and our blocking has been amazing," English said, as NNU had 67 digs and 15 blocks for points in the match. "It's really tough to score points on us right now."

Case in point — the second set NNU blew out to a 12-4 lead after a tandem block from Elayna Rice and Andrea Terpstra and once again cruised to the win, going up two sets to none after a VanValey and Madi Farrell tandem block.

The third set started off much tougher for the Crusaders as a Jennica McPherson kill put the Vikings up 5-2 early before a 7-1 run by NNU stole any momentum away from the Western Washington bench.

WWU (17-5, 10-3) did tie the set, 13-13, on a Joellee Buckner kill, but a VanValey kill put NNU back on top as the Crusaders slowly inched away.

A Rice service ace made it 20-16, a tandem block by Kendra Bodine and Farrell gave the Crusaders a match point, and a Rice kill completed the sweep.

A sweep that puts NNU firmly in control of first-place in the GNAC, two matches ahead of the Vikings and a match up on Alaska Anchorage, which NNU swept this season.

But the Crusaders want to "Leave No Doubt," as the GNAC champions earn an automatic berth to the NCAA Division II National Tournament.

That's a ton of motivation for a team that returns everyone from last year's team which was the first team left out of nationals last fall.

"We're still riding that wave of not going to the tournament last year and we're not going to let that happen again," Roberts said. "We left that to chance and we're not going to let that happen again."

Roberts led the way defensively for NNU with 16 digs, while Michelle Terpstra led the offense with 30 assists and added 11 digs.

Rice had seven kills and 14 digs for NNU, Bodine added a team-high nine kills, VanValey had five kills and eight blocks and Kaitlyn Tuholski added 13 digs in the win.

Next up for the Crusaders is "Senior Saturday" when they host Simon Fraser at 7 p.m. this Saturday night.

The match will be the final home regular-season match for seniors Tuholski, Michelle Terpstra, Roberts and Rebecca TenHaken.