Box Score

ELLENSBURG, Wash. — The Crusaders hit their stride and rolled Thursday against the No. 21-ranked team in the country.

After winning a hard-fought first set, Northwest Nazarene commit just three hitting errors in the final two sets, cruising past BYU-Hawaii, 25-23, 25-16, 25-11, at the Pac West/GNAC Crossover Tournament hosted by Central Washington.

"The game-plan going in was to push the ball to the middles and Madi (Farrell) and Jenna (Caywood) hit great tonight," NNU head volleyball coach Doug English said.

"Hailey (Cook) ran our offense the best she has all year," NNU's coach added, "and all our hitters made great choices."

Farrell led all hitters in the match with 11 kills and added six blocks, while Caywood's nine kills were second-highest in the match.

One of those Caywood kills came in a tight first set with NNU (2-3) trailing 18-16, and combined with a Seasiders miscue, helped the Crusader even the score, 18-18.

BYU-Hawaii (2-3) briefly maintained a one-point lead, but leading 22-21 the Seasiders gave back to back points to NNU on hitting errors.

The Crusaders made the Seasiders pay, grabbing a 24-23 lead on a Farrell kill and winning it on a Breezy Byrne service ace.

From there it was all Crusaders as Farrell had three kills in a five-point NNU surge that snapped a 10-all tie in the second set en route to a two-set-to-none lead.

And the third set wasn't even that close as a pair of Caywood kills opened the final set, a Linnea Phillips ace made it 5-1 for the Crusaders, and the lead only grew from there as NNU swept the match.

Phillips finished with 16 digs to lead the NNU defense while Cook dished out 30 assists in the win, which also saw Elayna Rice add eight kills and seven digs and Kendra Bodine record seven kills.

"Our back-row players were all over BYU-Hawaii's setter attacks and that won us some good points," English said of Phillips and Jacquelyn Johnson (four digs).

"We played a very focused and efficient last two games. I hope we can keep this going the rest of the weekend," said NNU's coach, looking ahead to Friday's match against Dixie State at 4:45 p.m. (Mountain Time) and battles with Fresno Pacific and Point Loma on Saturday.