NAMPA, Idaho – The Northwest Nazarene volleyball team was swept Tuesday by Central Washington in a Great Northwest Athletic Conference match.

The Wildcats won 25-23, 25-21, 25-13 to split the season series.

"Our offense actually got better every set, which is crazy because we got stuck there in row four for a while," NNU coach Doug English said. "Brooke (Foster) had a really nice match. She killed a ton of balls tonight and that is something she hasn't done recently. She was super aggressive and I liked that. And Lexi (Ward) did a nice job blocking tonight too."

NNU (10-12 overall, 6-9 GNAC) had chances to win each of the first two sets. In the first set, the Nighthawks erased a 14-6 deficit pulling within 20-18, 21-19, 22-20 and 24-23 but couldn't ever get over the hump.

In the second set, NNU led through the midpoint of the set before a call went against the Nighthawks. It seemed to take away some momentum.

"We had a good game plan and Megan (Nelson) stuck with it and got Abbey (Blum) a nice set and people were pretty adamant on the bench that it was touched," English said. "You get bad calls and we didn't respond great after a bad call and they went on a little run and that might have been the difference.

"We lost two close sets and we have got to figure out what is going on in the third set because we don't play well in them."

Foster led NNU with 16 kills, four digs and two aces. Blum added seven kills and nine digs, Kayla Sale had 14 digs and Nelson had 27 assists and eight digs.

While NNU suffered its third consecutive loss, the Nighthawks were certainly hustling all night extending rallies with dives and sold out play.

"I thought our effort was good the whole time," English said. "We played hard, we just weren't able to get kills. It is toward the end of the year and want us working hard and we did. It is a bummer when it doesn't pay off."

The Nighthawks play at 7 p.m. Thursday at Montana State Billings.