NAMPA, Idaho – The Northwest Nazarene women's basketball team lost 94-83 on Saturday to Western Washington in a Great Northwest Athletic Conference matchup.

The game featured contrasting styles and the Vikings' size gave the Nighthawks problems all night long.

"They were more physical than us," NNU coach Steve Steele said. "It is an obvious difference in styles. They are big and want to pound it inside and we are fast and want to try to keep the tempo high and they killed us in the paint."

The Vikings (11-5 overall, 5-3 GNAC) scored 62 points in the paint and outrebounded the Nighthawks 39-30. NNU, which is second in the country in steals, only had four steals and forced just 14 turnovers.

Western Washington also shot 15 more free throws than NNU (11-5, 6-2).

"They got to the free throw line a lot more than we did and that doesn't help us keep the pace up," Steele said. "Credit to them. They played their game plan better than we executed our game plan."

The game was back-and-forth from the opening tip and Western led 81-79 after a floater by Marina Valles in the paint with 3 minutes, 45 seconds left. The Vikings, though, closed on a 13-4 run.

"We've got to get a little tougher physically and learn from what we didn't do well," Steele said. "We didn't rotate well out of the press and we didn't rotate well and find boxouts. Those were the biggest things.

"When we did get help on their bigs and a shot went up, we didn't boxout. When we didn't get help on the bigs, they scored. We have to learn to help on the bigs when we are in trouble and still scramble out and find rebounds."

Erin Jenkins' 18 points and four rebounds led the Nighthawks, who had five players in double figures.

McKenna Emerson added 15 points and five rebounds, Valles had 13 points, three rebounds and four assists, Avery Albrecht had 13 points and Jordan Pinson added 10.

Anna Schwecke had 29 points and 10 rebounds to lead the Vikings.

NNU hits the road to play Western Oregon at 6:15 p.m. MST on Thursday.