By: Evan O'Kelly, Associate Commissioner for Communications

LACEY, Wash. – When it mattered most, No. 4 seed Western Washington’s Alyson Deaver stepped up and delivered to help her team to an 82-70 triumph over No. 5 seed Northwest Nazarene in Thursday’s Great Northwest Athletic Conference Women’s Basketball Championships quarterfinal matchup.
 
In a back-and-forth affair, neither team led by more than two points across the first 13 minutes of the second half. Deaver kicked her game into high gear down the stretch, scoring seven points and adding three rebounds and a block in the final five minutes to give her team the push it needed to secure the win. “Having my guards feed me and then kicking the ball out to them really helped, and we had such good ball movement,” said Deaver, a first-year Viking who transferred from Utah Tech. “When the defense would collapse on me they were wide open, so it was fun to kick out and play with them.”
 
Western Washington improved to 18-10 on the season and set up a semifinal encounter with No. 1 seed Alaska Anchorage. The matchup against the GNAC regular-season champion is scheduled for 5:15 p.m. on Friday evening. “NNU is a great team. They play so hard, and they just disrupt you,” said WWU head coach Carmen Dolfo, the winningest coach in GNAC history. “In the second half towards the end of the game in particular we did a good job of moving the ball, finding the open person and really taking good shots.”
 
Deaver finished with 17 points on 6-for-10 shooting and just missed a double-double with nine rebounds. Senior Olivia Wikstrom notched her ninth double-double of the year with 15 points and a game-high 11 rebounds, helping the Vikings to a 33-28 advantage on the glass overall in the game. “It was super competitive, and every time we play NNU it is a back-and-forth, fast game,” said Wikstrom, who entered the game tied for sixth in the GNAC with 7.0 rebounds per game this season. “We just had to fight the whole time.”
 
The Nighthawks saw their season come to an end with a record of 16-12 and made their first GNAC Championships appearance since 2022. Madeline Gebers led the way in the final game of her collegiate career, scoring 24 points on 9-for-17 shooting while adding three rebounds and three steals. Fellow senior Kate Clark capped her career with 11 points, four rebounds and three assists, while first-team all-GNAC selection Kendall Clark had 15 points on 6-for-8 shooting and a team-best seven rebounds.
 
The Vikings got off to a good start, opening up a 15-6 lead five minutes into the game. A five-point burst by Gebers, which included her first triple of the evening, helped the Nighthawks cut the deficit down to 19-13 late in the first quarter.
 
The Nighthawks had a good start to the second quarter, with Kendall Clark converting a layup and Beaux Bruegman and Kate Clark making consecutive threes to give them their first lead at 23-22. Gebers’ second three of the half was followed by a Kendall Clark reverse layup, helping the Nighthawks carry a 37-34 lead into the halftime break.
 
Demi Dykstra knocked down a trey with seven minutes to go, which finally gave the Vikings separation at 64-58. Before the make, neither team led by more than two points across the first 13 minutes of the second half. Oberg followed up with a mid-range jumper, and the Vikings never trailed the rest of the way.
 
WWU made winning plays down the stretch, to punch their ticket to the GNAC semifinals for the sixth year in a row. Deaver swatted a 3-point attempt by Kate Clark with five minutes left and followed with a big three-point play to make the score 71-62. Maddy Grandbois had a key steal, and the Vikings made three of their four free throw attempts in the final four minutes.
 
All five of WWU’s starters reached double digits in scoring, with Dykstra contributing 15, Mason Oberg finishing with 13 points, four steals and four assists, and Grandbois ending with 10 points. WWU shot 48.2% overall (27-for-56) and capitalized from the foul line at 23-for-29 (79.3%) on the night.
 
The Nighthawks also shot well at 50.0% (28-for-56) overall but made just 6 of 20 threes (30.0%) and committed 23 turnovers in the season-closing defeat. Gebers finished her prolific two-year career in a n NNU uniform as the fourth-best 3-point shooter in GNAC history, hitting at a clip of 42.4% (123-for-290) since the beginning of the 2023-24 campaign. Gebers’ 20-point game on Thursday was her seventh of the season.
   

GNAC Women’s Basketball Career Leaders – 3-Point FG% (Min. 175 attempts)
Rank	Player	School	3FG%	Career
1	Stacey Miller	Western Washington	44.3	2000-03
2	Roni Jo Mielke	Saint Martin's	43.9	2007-11
3	Jamey Gelhar	Saint Martin's	42.5	2006-10
4	Madeline Gebers	Northwest Nazarene	42.4	2023-25
5	Alira Carpenter	Montana State Billings	42.1	2007-09
6	Sunny Huerta	Central Washington	41.8	2021-25
7	Ellen Kett	Simon Fraser	41.7	2013-17
8	Jenna Buchanan	Alaska Anchorage	41.5	2012-16
9	Avery Albrecht	Northwest Nazarene	41.3	2016-20
10	Aubree Callen	Seattle Pacific	41.1	2010-15

GAME NOTES: In the rubber match between the teams the Vikings claimed a 2-1 edge in this season’s meetings…It was the fifth all-time meeting between the teams at the GNAC Championships, with WWU holding a 4-1 edge in tournament play against the Nighthawks…WWU is making its 14th tournament appearance and has the second-most tournament titles with four…the Vikings are making a bid to become the second women’s team to claim three straight tournament trophies, after winning back-to-back titles in 2023 and 2024…NNU made its 11th tournament appearance this season and its first since the 2022 event.
 
NEXT UP: The Vikings move on to the semifinals where they’ll square off against No. 1 seed Alaska Anchorage on Friday evening at 5:15 p.m. WWU went 0-2 this season against the Seawolves and is 1-5 all-time in tournament games against this year’s regular-season champion.