FAIRBANKS, Alaska – The Alaska Nanooks volleyball team fell in heartbreaking fashion on Tuesday night, as the Nooks dropped a hard-fought, home-opener to in-state rival No. 14 Alaska Anchorage in three sets in front a rowdy crowd of 512 people at the Alaska Airlines Court.

In a game that saw 26 tie scores and 12 lead changes, the Nooks went 21-25, 19-25 and 22-25 against the Seawolves, moving their overall record to 7-3 and 0-1 in Great Northwest Athletic Conference play, while UAA improves to 5-4 overall and 1-0 in GNAC contests.

"UAA is a very solid team and I don't want to take away what they did tonight, because they played a great game. But I think overall, we didn't do what we needed to get done in order to get the win tonight," head coach Brian Scott said on Tuesday. "Tonight was the first night we have shown some struggle on the offense and it was uncharacteristic of us from what we've seen from our players so far."

As a team, Alaska posted 32 kills on the night, led by freshman outside hitter Lahra Weber, who chipped in seven. The Nanooks also tallied 50 digs, 31 assists, four service aces and 3.0 team blocks. Weber led the team offensively, but it was senior middle blocker Riley Podowicz who recorded the best hitting percentage of her teammates, collecting five kills and only one error off of 11 total attacks for a .364 hitting percentage. Podowicz also registered Alaska's only two solo blocks of the night.

Senior setter Rachel Nichols posted a team-high 12 assists while sophomore libero Jenna Hickel collected a game-high 16 digs.

On the other end of the court, UAA had double-digit kills from Chrisalyn Johnson (13) and Leah Swiss (11), while Swiss posted the only double-double of the night by adding 12 digs. Libero Keala Kaio-Perez led her teammates with 15 digs while setters Madison Fisher and Casey Davenport tied for the game-high assist count with 19 each.

The Nanooks were the first team to get on the board in the first set with a kill from redshirt-freshman outside hitter Markie Miller. The set went back-and-forth for both teams until the 4-4 mark before UAA capitalized on attacking and receiving errors by the Nanooks to break away with a 6-10 lead over the home team. Led by Nichols' serving, Alaska made a comeback to tie the game at 10-10 before UAA officially ran with the lead and ended the set at 21-25.

The second set was anyone's game, as it saw 15 tie scores and 10 lead changes. The Seawolves and the Nanooks were never more than three points away from each other until the 19-19 mark before UAA went on a six-point run to seal two sets with a 19-25 score.

Alaska earned the first point of the third set with a kill from Podowicz and held on to the lead until the 8-8 point in the set. The Nooks overcame a five-point deficit at the 16-21 mark to make it a 21-23 game but attacking errors by both the Nanooks and the Seawolves, along with a kill from UAA's Swiss, gave Alaska Anchorage the set and the match at 22-25.

"Something we're always preaching is discipline. To be disciplined in our systems, especially. I think at times tonight we weren't disciplined enough and that's when we saw some breakdowns," Scott concluded. "We'll regroup and learn from this but if we just go out and play like us, we'll be fine going forward."

The Alaska Nanooks hit the road to take on the Montana State Billings Yellowjackets in a GNAC matchup at the Alterowitz Gymnasium on Friday, Sept. 15 at 5pm AKT.

For more information on the Alaska Nanooks volleyball team, follow @NanooksVB on Twitter or like the Alaska Nanooks Volleyball team page on Facebook.