THE SCHEDULE
Thursday, Oct. 20                                Central Washington at Seattle Pacific, 7:00 p.m.
                                                                Brougham Pavilion / Seattle, Wash.
                                                                Live Webcast        Live stats
 
Saturday, Oct. 22                                 Northwest Nazarene at Seattle Pacific, 2:00 p.m.
                                                                Brougham Pavilion / Seattle, Wash.
                                                                Live Webcast        Live stats

 
SEATTLE – The Seattle Pacific Falcons are back in Brougham Pavilion – and are looking to get back into the win column again, as well.
 
After falling short twice in Alaska last week, SPU returns to Brougham Pavilion to continue the second half of the Great Northwest Athletic Conference schedule by playing host to Central Washington and Northwest Nazarene.
 
The Wildcats are in town on Thursday, with the first serve at 7:00 p.m. The Nighthawks visit on Saturday, with action beginning at 2:00 p.m. The Falcons beat both teams in their gyms last month, 3-1 at NNU and 3-2 at Central.
 
SPU (8-11, 6-5 GNAC) is 4-1 at home, and has won 15 of its past 17 in Brougham.
 
The annual Alaska road trip is always challenging, and that certainly was true again last week. Anchorage, ranked No. 9 nationally, scored a 3-0 sweep on Thursday. Then on Saturday Fairbanks pulled out a 3-2 victory after Seattle Pacific rallied from two sets down to get into a deciding fifth.
 
FOLLOW IT LIVE
Both of this week's contests and all remaining GNAC matches will have free live Webcasts and live stats. The Webcasts are available through YouTube. Greg Sexton will call the action. The appropriate links for the Webcasts and live stats can be found at the top of this story.
 




SO WHAT'S THE STORY THIS WEEK?
-- Central and NNU are tied for third place in the GNAC standings at 7-4, one match ahead of SPU at 6-5.
-- The Falcons will have the opportunity to sweep both season series.
-- They did win both matches last fall against Central, but split against Northwest Nazarene. The last time they won both against the Nighthawks was 2019.
-- Last month in Nampa, Seattle Pacific was up 2 sets to 1, but was facing a 23-20 deficit in Set 4. The Falcons then ran off the final five points of the match to hand the Nighthawks their first conference loss, just their second overall defeat of the season, and halted their eight-match winning streak.
-- SPU wound up with 11 more kills and 22 more attacks than Northwest Nazarene. Ashley Antoniak led the way with 15 kills.
-- Seattle Pacific also had a 2 sets to 1 lead at Central Washington two nights later, but did wind up in a fifth set.
-- The Wildcats had control with an 8-5 lead as the teams changed sides. However, SPU finished on a 10-3 scoring run to take the set and the match.
 

-- That was a good week for opposite Maddie Pruden as she had 25 kills and .377 hitting in the two matches combined.
-- Those contests at NNU and Central marked two of the three instances this fall when the Falcons dropped the first set, but came back to win. The other one was a five-setter on Sept. 2 against Biola at the Cal State Los Angeles invitational.
-- Emily Tulino needs just five assists to reach 900 for her career. The sophomore will need to average 17 assists per match over the final seven regular-season contests to reach 1,000.
-- Twice, Tulino has had a career-high 38 assists – both times last year against NNU.
 
SCOUTING THE CENTRAL WASHINGTON WILDCATS: 12-7, 7-4 GNAC (tie 3rd)
All-time series: CWU leads, 42-41  Current series streak: SPU won 6.  Last time: SPU 3, CWU 2 (20-25, 25-17, 25-21, 17-25, 15-11, Sept 24 at Ellensburg).  Last CWU series win: CWU 3, SPU 0 (25-20, 25-22, 25-12; Sept. 26, 2019 at Ellensburg).  Wildcats on the Web.
Wildcats in a nutshell: Central has won three straight, all in 3-0 sweeps at home against Alaska Fairbanks, Saint Martin's and Western Oregon. It's the third time this season the Wildcats have put together three in a row. One of the keys CWU's offense is junior 5-foot-9 outside hitter / setter Tia Andaya. She has 202 kills (2.85 per set) while hitting .252, and has assisted on another 380 kills for her teammates (5.35 per set). Along with her 49 total blocks and 25 service aces, Andaya has had a hand in 656 of Central's points. Junior 5-foot-8 outside hitter Ashley Kaufman leads Central 222 kills, a 3.13 per set average that ranks No. 5in the GNAC. Sophomore Emma Daoud-Hebert, a 6-foot middle blocker, is not only the conference's leading hitter at .372, she's also the top blocker with 102 total / 1.44 per set. When Andaya isn't setting up her teammates, fellow junior Sydney Remsberg is, with 391 assists.
 
SCOUTING THE NORTHWEST NAZARENE NIGHTHAWKS: 14-5, 7-4 GNAC (tie 3rd)
All-time series: SPU leads, 25-20.  Current series streak: SPU won 1.  Last time: SPU 3, NNU 1 (20-25, 25-14, 25-19, 25-23; Sept. 22 at Nampa).  Last NNU series win: NNU 3, SPU 2 (23-25, 25-21, 31-29, 18-25, 15-9; Nov. 20, 2021 at Nampa). Nighthawks on the Web.
Nighthawks in a nutshell: Northwest Nazarene is on a two-match winning streak, a four-setter against Western Oregon and a three-set sweep of Saint Martin's in Nampa last week. That gives the Nighthawks victories in three of their last four, offsetting a skid in which they lost three of four. NNU has two of the top front-row threats in the conference. Redshirt senior 6-foot outside hitter Natalie Sullivan has 242 kills, a 3.61 average that ranks No. 2. Senior 6-1 middle blocker Olivia Wright is No. 4 on the kills list at 3.52 per set / 222 total. Wright came up with 13 last month against SPU on 360 hitting, and Sullivan had eight. Wright's season hitting percentage is No. 8 in that GNAC statistical department. Helping give them their opportunities is 6-1 redshirt senior Mckenzie Lee with an average of 10.79 assists per set that leads the conference. Wright is No. 5 on the blocks list with 67 total / 1.06 per set.
 
GOING IT ALONE
The Falcons were credited with an eye-catching nine solo blocks in last Saturday's five-setter at Alaska Fairbanks.
 
To put that in perspective: SPU had nine solos in the first 16 matches of the season combined.
 
 

As might be expected, middle blocker Hannah Hair led the way with five of those solos. That was more than double her previous single-match best of two, which she reached twice, most recently last Sept. 18 at Central Washington. Hair had one solo in the first set against the Nanooks, one in the second, two in the third, and one in the fourth. She now has six for the season.
 
The others solos for Seattle Pacific were two by Allison Wilks and one each by Erin Smith and Maddie Pruden. That was a career high for Wilks; topping her previous best of one, which she recorded five times.
 
SENIOR DAY IS COMING
After their upcoming stretch of three road matches in the next two weeks, the Falcons will return to Brougham Pavilion for the final two contests on the schedule. The last of those, on Saturday, Nov. 12 against Western Washington, will be Senior Day.
 
A total of six seniors will be honored prior to the first serve against the Vikings: opposites Ashley Antoniak and Maddie Pruden, setters Austin Ibale and Lindsey Lambert, outside hitter Lindsay Rosenthal, and defensive specialist Paige Dawson.
 
The match is scheduled for a 2:00 p.m. start.
 
AROUND THE WEST First place in the GNAC will be on the line this week when current leader Alaska Anchorage visits second-place Western Washington on Saturday in Bellingham. The Seawolves are 21-1, 11-0 in conference play; the Vikings are 14-4, 9-1 GNAC. When they met at UAA on Sept. 22, and Anchorage swept it, 25-22, 25-19, 25-22. Western must first deal with Alaska Fairbanks (15-8, 5-6 GNAC) on Thursday while the Seawolves visit Simon Fraser (7-12, 4-6).
 
It's the same story in the California Collegiate Athletic Association. Cal State Los Angeles, riding a six-match winning streak, still has the upper hand. But just one match behind them in second place is Cal Poly Pomona (16-3, 10-2). They go at it on Friday night in Pomona. On Sept. 24 in L.A., the visiting Broncos pulled out a five-set victory, 30-28, 25-16, 17-25, 19-25, 15-13. That was the 12th match of a 14-match winning streak.
 
Chaminade is opening some ground in the Pacific West Conference. The Silverswords have won 13 straight, including home sweeps of Dominican and Holy Names last week in which neither visiting team scored more than 18 points in any set. Fresno Pacific (10-7, 9-3 Pac West) is closest to Chaminade, 2½ matches back. The Swords have a challenging week ahead, hosting Point Loma Nazarene and Concordia Irvine, who share third place with identical 8-3 records.

AROUND THE GNAC
Click on this link for this week's GNAC volleyball notebook. Click on this link for a look at results, polls, and stats.
 
UP NEXT
The Falcons take to the road next week, visiting Saint Martin's on Thursday, Oct. 27, at 7:00 p.m., and Western Oregon on Saturday the 29th, also at 7:00 p.m. SPU defeated both teams in Seattle, 3-0 against the Saints and 3-1 against the Wolves.

 
 
GNAC STANDINGS
                                                        GNAC            Overall
Alaska Anchorage          11-0       21-1
Western Washington         9-1       14-4
Northwest Nazarene         7-4       14-5
Central Washington         7-4       12-7
Seattle Pacific            6-5        8-11
Alaska Fairbanks           5-6       15-8
Simon Fraser               4-6        7-12
Western Oregon             3-8        7-12
Saint Martin's             2-9       12-9
Montana State Billings     0-11       7-12