FAIRBANKS, Alaska – The Alaska Nanooks volleyball team welcomed the #2 nationally ranked, Western Washington Vikings to Fairbanks on Thursday, Oct. 17. The Vikings overpowered the Nanooks and grabbed a sweep, 18-25, 19-25 and 25-27. This loss drops the Nanooks to 9-8, 6-3 GNAC.

The first set saw the Nanooks jump out to an early two-point advantage, however, in a matter of seconds, the Vikings strung together seven straight points to flip the score, and the momentum to their side, taking the lead, 6-11. After grabbing two more points, the Vikings ran away with the game. At the 8-12 point, WWU got kills from Tess Biscup, Gabby Gunterman and Kayleigh Harper to extend their lead to 9-16. The 'Nooks, however, did not shy away from a comeback opportunity, scoring six of the last seven points before finally dropping the set point to WWU.

Lahra Weber led the way on the offensive front for the 'Nooks, tallying 11 kills on 37 total attempts. Cate Whiting checked in with 28 assists and 13 digs, but despite solid games from the two, Nanook juniors, Western was too much.

Set two saw the back-and-forth match begin. After jumping out to a 12-8 lead, Alaska allowed Western to tie it up with four straight points, with kills from three separate people. The two teams traded points up until the 19-20 WWU lead when the Vikings strung together five straight points on the attack, benefiting from Alaska errors.

"We had a tough time stopping the slide tonight … I thought when we kept them out of system and we served tough, we had a shot, we were able to do some good things defensively, we just didn't do it long enough and we weren't in our system long enough to have our own middles go and swing at a ball." Head coach Brian Scott felt there was some good to come of tonight, but not enough to truly benefit from the glimpses. "I liked the way that we fought back, we were pretty far down in the third set but we were able to come back and pushed it to extra points … I want to get over the hump or hurdle of allowing a team to do that where we don't need to make that comeback."

That third set comeback began when the Vikings took a quick 3-10 lead on the 'Nooks. After a timeout on the Alaska side, things changed. Kills from Weber, Emily Moorhead and AveRee Reynolds got the 'Nooks within two at 16-18. The closest they'd been up to that point. With their backs on the wall, the Nanooks tied things up at 25 before a kill and service ace put the game out of reach for Alaska.

The Nanooks have 48 hours to move on from this sweep, as they welcome the lone-Canadian NCAA school, Simon Fraser. SFU is coming off of a big five-set win over Alaska Anchorage, handing the Seawolves their second GNAC loss of the season. That game will be on Saturday, Oct. 19 at 7:00 p.m. on campus in the Patty Center.

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