The Northwest Nazarene women's basketball team has given the phrase road warriors an entirely new meaning this season.

The Nighthawks played their first 11 regular-season games on the road, and if you include exhibitions, they played 13 consecutive games away from Johnson Sports Center.

While they were racking up airline miles and hotel points on all of those trips, they were also forging a special bond and learning to overcome adversity.

"It was actually a lot of fun. Every trip, we'd switch rooms and everyone got really close early on," senior Shawnacee Davis said. "It is nice to keep building off of that."

The Nighthawks won six of those 11 games, with one being declared a no contest after a Westminster player passed out on the court.

"I knew from the get-go, it was either going to be a huge help or a huge detriment," head coach Steve Steele said. "The goal for us every year is to get to the national tournament and that is how we rate ourselves. You are going to have to do that on the road. You are going to have to play the GNAC tournament on the road. So, it has made us tough. We have won a lot of close games."

NNU (13-7 overall, 7-4 GNAC) will be sleeping in its own beds this weekend, as the Nighthawks host Simon Fraser on Thursday and Western Washington on Saturday in Great Northwest Athletic Conference matchups. Both games start at 5:15 p.m.

The road-heavy schedule was happenstance as the program often plays in tournaments early in the season and this year those tournaments all were outside of Idaho.

"We saw the schedule and thought it would be rough," said senior Kate Clark. "We had to get in a groove of traveling and (coach) Steele talked to us a lot about being mentally tough and getting used to it and that it would pay off.

"Every conference road game is hard and I think that is where it benefits us."

That certainly seemed to be the case in the first half of the conference season, as the Nighthawks won four of six on the road including sweeping this weekend's opponents earlier this year – which was the first time NNU had done that since the 2019-20 season.

"It seems like every trip has something that seems to set us back," said senior Madeline Gebers. "We are all so close together off the court and on the court, so we take it as a challenge every time. We can win these games and go through these things.

"It's definitely caused it so when people do get injured or something happens, we can say, 'Hey, we've been through this before. We can handle it.' And then we play for that person or for that situation."

That mentality has shown up on their home court as well, as the Nighthawks erased 14- and 17-point deficits in wins against Montana State-Billings and Seattle Pacific.

The success the team is having after two down years is not lost on the players or the coaching staff. Part of it is a return to Steele's signature press defense and part of it is the culture the seniors have infused.

"The past few years, we haven't been as tight knit as we are now," Davis said. "Being part of a senior class that has focused on building those relationships has really helped us and contributed to that success."

Davis is part of a group of four seniors including Gebers, Clark and Loy Waid. Only Clark has been at the school all four years, while Davis and Waid have been here three years and Gebers two.

"All the teams I've been on have had great chemistry," Waid said, "but last year there was a bunch of new people who came in. This year we have a better bond."

All four players are key for the team, as each averages at least 18 minutes per game and are in the top six scoring the ball this season.

And no matter how the season wraps up, the group is just happy to see the Nighthawks women's basketball program getting back to the pedigree it established throughout its long history.

"It's just fun to see the process and know we stuck through it," Clark said. "Seeing the highs and the lows and figuring out the kinks – I knew we could be good, but it is rewarding to see us be successful this year."