NAMPA, Idaho – With the Johnson Sports Center rocking like the days of old, the Northwest Nazarene University women's basketball team blew the doors off of Alaska Anchorage in a 104-78 victory Thursday.

The win puts NNU one win away from the No. 1 seed at the Great Northwest Athletic Conference tournament next week. It also marks the most wins by the Nighthawks in a Division II season. And with a win Saturday, it will be the first regular-season championship for NNU since 2000 when the school was NAIA.

"I'm pretty numb right now," senior Lexi Tubbs said. "I'm still out of breath. I can't believe we just did that. That was amazing."

The Nighthawks (21-3 overall, 17-2 GNAC) have now won 12 consecutive games. They also hit a school record 16 3-pointers in Thursday's victory.

"It felt like a daze," junior McKenna Walker said. "The crowd was awesome tonight. It was just so much good energy.

"One word to describe it was: fun. It's amazing to see how far we've come with the student body coming to our games. If you could see the students at our games my freshman year, it is amazing the turnaround."

The game was billed as the biggest home game for the NNU women since the old NAIA days when the Nighthawks went to the NAIA Division II Final Four in 2000 and won the national title in 1997.

NNU has never finished higher than third in the GNAC since joining in 2001.

On Thursday, the Nighthawks certainly did not disappoint or succumb to any pressure.

Tubbs poured in a game-high 26 points, including 23 in the second half. Walker had 24 and was 5-for-5 from beyond the 3-point line. Avery Albrecht added 12, and Carly Parker and Colette Gall had 11 each. Tubbs became the ninth NNU player to cross the 1,000-point plateau since the school moved to DII.

The victory avenged a 78-68 loss to Anchorage in the second game of the GNAC schedule in December.

"At their place, I think we just got a little overexcited and I think it made us freeze," Tubbs said. "I think we handled it very well this time around."

NNU outscored Anchorage 58-34 in the second half, holding Seawolves leading scorer Shelby Cloninger to just two points in the final 20 minutes.

The Nighthawks used an 11-2 run early in the third quarter to push the lead to double digits, which they never relinquished. They used a 14-2 run in the fourth quarter capped by a 3-pointer by Albrecht to send the crowd into a frenzy.

"That was amazing," Tubbs said. "I want this to happen every time. I'm so excited. I can't believe that many people came out tonight and supported us. I was just feeling the love."

If the Nighthawks win Saturday against Alaska, then they will be the No. 1 seed to the conference tournament thanks to a series of tiebreakers against Anchorage.

The top two seeds get byes to the semifinals of the GNAC tournament at Anchorage. And if things break right, the two teams -- NNU and Anchorage -- will play a rubber match next Saturday in the conference title game.

For now, though, the Nighthawks are going to revel in a blowout victory in front of raucous home crowd.

"I've never been in an atmosphere like this," NNU coach Steve Steele said. "I coached a long time at the high school level, in state championships … I've coached a lot of places. I've never seen an atmosphere like this. It was fantastic."