MONMOUTH, Ore.--Northwest Nazarene improved to 9-4 on the season with a tightly contested four-set win over host Western Oregon on Saturday night at the Western Athletic Center.
The Nighthawks pulled away with wins in sets three and four to take the match, 25-22, 20-25, 25-21, 25-19. NNU is now 3-3 in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference, while the Wolves fall to 6-7 on the season and to 2-3 in conference play.
Mele Taumoepeau led Western Oregon with 13 kills and the first-year Wolf had a career high 23 digs. Katelyn Markley added 11 kills,
Malena Mathis had ten and
Samantha Darby added 36 assists and 16 digs.Â
Abby Black led Northwest Nazarene with 16 kills and Kayci Spray anchored the Nighthawk defense with 26 digs.Â
The first set went back and forth, tied at 17-17, 18-18 and 19-19. But three straight NNU points gave them the lead that they wouldn't give back and the visitors went on to win, 25-22.Â
Western Oregon evened things up in the second set after jumping out to big lead early. The Wolves led 5-1 and 9-2 and never trailed in winning 25-20.
In the pivotal third set, it was the Nighthawks who jumped out quickly to a 7-1 margin. WOU would climb back to 9-6 and would also trail by just three at 24-21 after back-to-back put aways by
Finley Buman. But NNU would close out the set on the next point.
In the fourth, the game was tied at 6-6 before Northwest Nazarene won four straight to make it 10-6. Western stayed close, trailing by three at 19-16, but the Nighthawks scored six of the next seven points to close out at 25-19.
"We absolutely did not get the result we wanted, but there are many things walking away from this match that we can acknowledge were positive," said Wolves head coach
Kaiao Nahale-a. "One of those things is I thought
Finley Buman not only did her job on the stat sheet, but there are so many little things that she does to help make our team be successful. I was very proud of her tonight. We will get back to work now and get ready for a tough trip up north."
Up next for the Wolves is a trip north to take on Western Washington on Thursday (Oct.1) and Simon Fraser on Saturday. Both matches are set for 7 pm.Â
