LAKEWOOD, Colo. - With a 3-1 victory over Colorado Christian on Wednesday, Northwest Nazarene volleyball capped a perfect 4-0 record against the Cougars during the 2021 spring season. 

The Nighthawks defeated the Cougars 3-0 and 3-1 at home on Feb. 26, before earning a five-set win on the road yesterday.

NNU and CCU tallied the same number of kills in the match, but the difference came in mistakes made, as the Cougars recorded 31 attack errors to the Nighthawks' 17. NNU hit .257 for the match while holding CCU to just .135.

Abbey Blum led NNU in kills for the second-straight night with 11, while Brooke Foster and Natalie Sullivan both finished with 10 kills. Blum also had four blocks and Foster added nine kills and two aces.

Mckenzie Lee and Casey Kispert shared the setting duties with 23 and 21 assists. Caroline McMahon led the team with 23 digs while Anna Gable led with six blocks.

The Nighthawks showed a lot of grit and resiliency in the first two sets, withstanding back-and-forth battles to pull away at the end for close wins. In the first set, NNU was down 22-21 before a 4-0 run put the Cougars away. The Nighthawks ended set two in a similar fashion, trailing 23-20 before scoring the last five points of the set to win 25-23. 

Colorado Christian came out on top of another tightly contested set with a 27-25 win in the third frame, but the Nighthawks would lead from start to finish in the final set to take the match. Sullivan recorded the final kill for NNU, who improves to 5-7 on the year with three matches to play.

Two of those three remaining matches are also this week, as the Nighthawks will return home to face Alaska Fairbanks on Friday and Saturday. NNU is set to close out the 2021 spring season the following Saturday at Seattle Pacific.