NAMPA, Idaho – Stop me if you've heard this one before.

The Northwest Nazarene volleyball team played a five-set match Thursday.

And for the fifth time this season, the Nighthawks won when facing the marathon match.

NNU defeated Concordia 22-25, 25-17, 21-25, 25-19, 15-12 in Great Northwest Athletic Conference action.

It was the third consecutive five-set match the Nighthawks have played in and fourth in their last five matches.

"Last Saturday was one where we thought we played really well, but we lost," NNU coach Doug English said of the five-set loss to Montana State Billings. "But the process of what we did was really good. If we could execute like we did last Saturday we could win. And we did and this time we were able to pull it out."

The Nighthawks (8-8 overall, 4-4 GNAC) have now played seven five-set matches out of 18 matches overall this season. In the fifth set Thursday, NNU jumped out to a 10-2 lead before Concordia (7-9, 3-6) pulled within 11-9, 12-10 and 13-11.

In the end, though, Brooke Foster and Abbey Blum recorded kills to seal the victory.

"I wasn't nervous (in the fifth set), I was just kind of mad," NNU libero Kayla Sale said. "I knew we were going to get it. We just said, 'Let's stop this' and then we won. So, that was cool."

A big part of that victory was Sale's play defensively. She had a team-high 29 digs.

"Sale had one of her best matches of the year," English said. "She kept us in system and helped our offense. Our offense overall was really good. We hit .250 and if we hit .250 we won't lose a lot of matches and a lot of that was how Sale passed."

Blum finished with 20 kills, a .294 hitting percentage and 21 digs. Foster added 20 kills, a .234 hitting percentage and 15 digs. Natalie Sullivan added 11 kills, Lexi Ward had nine and a .412 hitting percentage and Tayler Markland had eight kills.

Megan Nelson had 60 assists, which is the second time this season she has had at least that many. She moved into sixth place in a single match earlier this year with 62 assists. She added 12 digs, while Caroline McMahon had 20.

The win was especially satisfying coming on the heels of the loss to Billings.

"This week was pretty hard," Sale said. "We were all super tired and it was exhausting, but we had a lot of good practices and in the fifth set we were just kind of relentless in our hitting and our defense and everything."

NNU hosts Western Oregon at 7 p.m. Saturday.