NAMPA, Idaho – The Northwest Nazarene volleyball team lost in five sets Thursday to Western Oregon in about the slimmest margins possible.

The largest point spread in the final tally was three points and three sets went extra points, but in the end it was the Wolves who prevailed 30-28, 25-27, 22-25, 26-24, 19-17 in Great Northwest Athletic Conference action.

"It was a fun match," NNU coach Doug English said. "Four deuce games – that is one play here or there. The one that haunts me was the first game. We were up 20-13 and couldn't pull that one out."

The Nighthawks (4-16 overall, 4-9 GNAC) had three match points in the fifth set, but couldn't find a way to close it out. In the first set, they had six set points but the Wolves kept fighting until they got the win.

NNU was strong offensively, finishing with 71 kills and a .213 attacking percentage, but struggled with serve-receive.

"I think in a lot of ways we outplayed them," English said. "We were more efficient, we got more kills … the one area we could've been better is we got aced a lot. In some aspects we didn't do a great job taking care of the ball in serving and passing and I think that came back to haunt us in the end there."

Western Oregon (6-14, 3-10) had 11 aces and the Nighthawks committed 10 service errors.

Abbey Blum had 22 kills and hit a blistering .409, while Kayla Sale added 18 kills and 13 digs, Tayler Markland had 10 kills, Cami Heninger had 11 kills and 12 digs and Brooke Foster had six kills and six digs.

Shayli Siegfreid dug out 30 balls, Megan Nelson had 35 assists and Mckenzie Lee added 19 assists and 12 digs.

NNU hosts Concordia at 7 p.m. Saturday.