Box Score

ELLENSBURG, Wash. — The Crusaders put up a great fight, but in the end a long week at Central Washington finish on a sour note Monday night.

The reigning Great Northwest Athletic Conference champions played five matches in five days in Ellensburg, Wash., with the final contest in that run being a league opener against the rival Wildcats.

Both teams traded a set early before the home team notched a 25-21, 13-25, 25-17, 25-11 win over defending champion Northwest Nazarene.

"We played well in our first conference match," said head Crusader volleyball coach Doug English, whose team played four matches at the end of last week at the Pac West/GNAC Crossover Tournament hosted by CWU before Monday's league opener. "Taylor VanValey, Madi Farrell and Kendra Bodine led our offense and we hit good enough."

The difference turned out to the need for a few more key defensive digs, though, in the close match.

"This week we are going to get better at defense as we are going to need a couple more digs to beat a good team," English said.

A fired up Wildcats squad proved to be a good team as they rallied to win the first set after being down 17-13 following a Bodine kill for NNU (3-6 overall, 0-1 GNAC).

But the Crusaders quickly responded and took away any momentum CWU held, storming out to a 7-0 lead in the second set on a tandem block from Elayna Rice and Jenna Caywood, and NNU never looked back.

But after the mid-match break, the Wildcats (5-3, 1-0) started building momentum once again, taking a 10-6 lead on a Madison Weg kill, then fending off NNU, which got no closer than 12-10 down following a VanValey kill.

A Linden Firethorne kill put CWU up 9-5 in the fourth set, and a Madison kill made it 15-7 for the Wildcats, who never let the Crusaders rally back into the match.  

VanValey led the way for NNU with 14 kills and seven blocks while Farrell added 12 kills and five blocks and Bodine had 10 kills and 11 digs for the Crusaders, who are back in action at Montana State Billings on Saturday, concluding a 10-match road trip to start their season.

Setter Hailey Cook dished out 42 assist for NNU, which also got 14 digs from Rice and 12 digs from Linnea Phillips.

"We just finished the toughest — both physically and opponent-wise — nine-match stretch on our schedule," English said. "We look forward to getting back home and getting into the rhythm of conference."

The Crusaders finally play a home match — their first of the 2015 season — a week from Thursday on Sept. 24, hosting Simon Fraser at 7 p.m. at the Johnson Sports Center.