The University of Alaska Fairbanks    

UAF volleyball suffers road loss

By BOB ELEY, Sports Editor

The magic ran out on the University of Alaska Fairbanks volleyball team Friday night in Ellensburg, Wash.

After notching their fourth straight win on Thursday night against Saint Martin's, the Nanooks suffered a 3-0 Great Northwest Athletic Conference setback at the hands of the Central Washington Wildcats.

"Central played well and did a good job against us tonight," UAF coach Phil Shoemaker said in a telephone interview after Friday night's 30-20, 31-29, 30-27 setback. "We had our moments and made some terrific plays, but we just didn't do it enough."

The loss leaves the Nanooks, who are ranked fifth in this week's NCAA Division II West Region poll, with a 9-5 overall mark and a 6-3 conference record at the midway point in the GNAC season.

"This was a tough loss and we talked about how it would affect our season in our postgame meeting," Shoemaker said. "We know everyone is excited about our No. 5 ranking, but, in reality, it doesn't mean anything. It all comes down to how you finish."

The three West Region conference champions and the next three highest-ranked teams at the end of the season advance to the Division II regionals. The Nanooks will probably need to win at least seven and possibly as many as eight of their nine matches to be in consideration.

"We're a good team, but the difference from being a great team is that the great teams analyze what's going wrong and fix it before they lose the match," Shoemaker said. "We did not identify the problems and correct them in order to win.

"I do think we probably will have to run the table," Shoemaker added. "There is very little margin for error the rest of the season."

The Nanooks got a strong performance from junior Mallory Bergstrom and freshman Danielle Hitzeman, but that wasn't enough to overcome four Central Washington players who had double figures in kills.

Bergstrom finished with a match-high 17 kills and was one of three Nanooks in double figures with 12 digs. Hitzeman had 10 kills and 12 digs, and Candice Smith led the Nanooks with 13 digs.

"We just were not sharp and a lot of that had to do with the way Central Washington played," Shoemaker said. "Our passing and setting were not where they have been in the past four matches and that really hurt us."

The Nanooks registered 12 1/2 team blocks and had four solo blocks and 17 block assists in the match.

"To have 12 1/2 blocks in three games is pretty good, but the rest of our overall game just wasn't working," Shoemaker said.

The loss also stalled Shoemaker's bid to reach 300 career coaching victories. Thursday's win was the 298th of his career. He'll be going for No. 299 next Saturday when the Nanooks play at Alaska Anchorage.