NAMPA, Idaho – From the get-go the Northwest Nazarene women's basketball team looked off.

By the time the Nighthawks started looking like themselves, though, it was too late, as their four-game winning streak came to an end with a 79-73 loss to Central Washington on Tuesday in a Great Northwest Athletic Conference game at Johnson Sports Center.

"We just were not quite ourselves this game," NNU's Coco Gall said. "We were working hard, but there wasn't that little extra that we normally give."
NNU (9-3 overall, 5-3 GNAC) shot just 17 percent in the first quarter and trailed by as many as 15 in the third quarter.

"They dictated everything tonight," NNU coach Steve Steele said. "Their offense made our defense react and their defense made our offense react. I thought they ran down a lot more loose balls and I thought they made us pay for our mistakes."

The Nighthawks are back in action at 5:15 p.m. Thursday at Montana State Billings, which features the GNAC preseason player of the year Alisha Breen.

"Tonight we can think about the game and see what we did wrong," Gall said, "but tomorrow we need to be focused on MSUB. They have some really good players that we need to stop. We can't focus and linger on this game."

NNU had not only won four in a row coming into Tuesday's game, but they had jumped to No. 4 in the most recent Division II West Region poll presented by D2SIDA.

The Nighthawks almost rallied late, pulling within four twice at 71-67 and 73-69 in the final minute but couldn't get a stop when they needed one late.

"We have to just get back to doing the fundamentals well," Steele said. "We were very poor fundamentally – giving up second chances and we had two or three lane violations on free throws.

"We did very few things well today."

Marina Valles and McKenna Walker each scored 16 points to lead NNU, while Lexi Tubbs had 13 points and eight rebounds.

Jasmin Edwards scored a game-high 19 points for the Wildcats (8-7, 4-3).

NNU was even in nearly every category except 3-point shooting. The Nighthawks made just 4-of-18 from beyond the arc, while Central made 7-of-19. The Wildcats came in having made only six total 3-pointers in the last two games.

"This is a good opportunity for us to learn," Gall said. "It's not fun, but hopefully we can take something from it."