ANCHORAGE, Alaska – With the GNAC regular-season title on the line Thursday, the Northwest Nazarene women's basketball team came up just short.

The No. 5 Nighthawks lost 64-55 to No. 6 Alaska Anchorage, all but giving the Seawolves the title.

Anchorage (26-1 overall, 18-1 GNAC) just needs to beat Central Washington on Saturday to sew up a second consecutive crown.

"We got outrebounded by 10 on the offensive boards and we had 10 more turnovers then them and they shot twice as many free throws as us," NNU coach Steve Steele said. "There is no way you can win with those types of stat lines against a team that good."

NNU (25-2, 17-2) led by as many as eight in the first quarter, but Anchorage went on a 13-0 run in the second quarter to take a six-point lead which the Seawolves maintained into the fourth quarter.

The Nighthawks trailed 50-41 with 9 minutes, 38 seconds remaining in the game before going on a 9-2 run to pull within 52-50.

Raquel Jardine had a layup and two free throws, Avery Albrecht made four free throws and Danielle Jardine split a pair to pull the Nighthawks within two points with 6:04 left.

Anchorage responded with an 8-2 run to put the game away.

"Despite the statistical differences we played really good defense," Steele said. "We held them to 29 percent from the field, we just didn't finish possessions with rebounds."

The Nighthawks play at Alaska at 3 p.m. MST on Saturday before heading to the GNAC tournament with the No. 2 seed most likely. The conference tourney is scheduled for March 7-9 at Western Washington. The top two seeds get byes.

"We're not even going to think about Alaska until (Friday)," Steele said. "We are going to mourn a little bit and comfort each other and then take what we can from this, regroup and move on."

Albrecht's 11 points led the Nighthawks, while Ellie Logan had eight points and seven rebounds before fouling out. Marina Valles, McKenna Walker and Danielle Jardine all added seven points.

NNU actually won the rebound battle 32-30, but Anchorage had a 16-6 advantage on the offensive boards outscoring the Nighthawks 13-4 on second-chance points.

"We are going to struggle to score when we turn the ball over that much," Steele said. "You have to be pretty much perfect to beat a team like Anchorage and we weren't tonight."