The University of Alaska Fairbanks    

Nanook netters fall short in tough match

By BOB ELEY, Sports Editor

It wasn't supposed to end like this.

After battling tooth and nail for more than two hours at the Patty Center, the University of Alaska Fairbanks volleyball team came up on the short end of the score in a five-game Great Northwest Athletic Conference match against the Central Washington Wildcats.

Central Washington pulled out its second straight thrilling victory in as many days. After rallying to beat Alaska Anchorage on Friday night in Anchorage and winning the fifth game 17-15, the Wildcats rallied to defeat the Nanooks 21-30, 30-25, 30-32, 30-25, 15-13.

"It was a good match, very exciting for the fans and typical of our rivalry with Central Washington," a disappointed UAF coach Phil Shoemaker said after discussing the match with his players. "They just gave it a little more at the crucial times in the match."

Shoemaker said the Nanooks just happened to make a few more errors than the Wildcats.

"Volleyball is a game of errors, every team is going to make them," he said. "What you don't want to do is make the same ones over and over. You want to invent some new ones sometimes."

After coming from behind to win the third game 32-30 to take a 2-1 lead, the Nanooks took leads of 12-7, 17-13 and 18-14 in game four, but they couldn't maintain the momentum and the Wildcats roared back to take the game thanks to a pair of five-point runs.

"For the most part we had a good effort, but at crucial times we came up short and made errors of miscommunications and things like that," Shoemaker said. "The effort part has to be there all the time and we got caught short on that one a couple of times, I think."

Saturday's match was the final home match for UAF senior Candice Smith, a 6-1 right side from Mount Lehman, British Columbia. She was honored prior to the start of the match and went out with a solid performance as she contributed 13 kills, had a .333 attack percentage, registered 17 digs and had three blocks.

Mallory Bergstrom led the Nanooks offensive attack with 23 kills. She also had 14 digs and two blocks. Freshmen Katie Tobiasz and Danielle Hitzeman added 14 and 13 kills, respectively. Hitzeman led the team with 23 digs.

Freshman setter Jessica Clemons also had an outstanding night with 55 assists, eight kills and four servic aces.

Central Washington also had four players in double figures in kills, led by LeAnne McGahuey with 19. Gita Burke had 18 to go along with eight blocks and Julie Roberts recorded 16. Kristin Pasley added 11 kills and Jessica Scott had 28 digs.

The loss dropped the Nanooks to 10-6 in conference play and 13-8 on the season. The Nanooks had hoped to earn a berth in the NCAA Division II West Regional, but the loss probably wiped out those hopes altogether.

Central moved into a third-place tie with the Nanooks with a 10-6 conference record. The Wildcats are 11-13 overall.

The Nanooks close out their regular season with matches at Seattle Pacific and Western Washington on Friday and Saturday, respectively.