The Vikings will go for their third consecutive (and fourth overall) GNAC Championships title this week in Portland…play familiar postseason opponent Seattle Pacific in the No. 2 (WWU) vs. No. 3 (SPU) game at 4 pm on Thursday…No. 1 seed Concordia and No. 4 seed Northwest Nazarene will play in the other semifinal game at 7 pm Thursday, with the winners meeting on Saturday at 1 pm for the conference championship game…WWU (2012, 2015-16) and SPU (2013-14) have combined to win all five of the GNAC Championships…tickets are currently on sale for the two-day tournament that will be held at Concordia University’s Tuominen Yard…WWU is undefeated at 8-0-2 all-time in GNAC Championships play (both ties were shootout defeats vs. SPU).
Led by four first-team selections, the Western Washington University women’s soccer team placed nine players on the 2017 Great Northwest Athletic Conference All-League team, as announced Wednesday by the conference office in Portland, Ore.
The Vikings nine selections to the team included four first-teamers, one second-team selection and four that earned honorable mention honors. Junior forward Karli White was named the GNAC Newcomer of the Year after transferring from Seattle University.
The defending NCAA Division II national champions led all conference members with nine selections to the All-GNAC team, followed closely by Concordia and Northwest Nazarene with seven each. WWU’s four first-team selections also led the league.
The WWU selections to the 2017 GNAC Women’s Soccer All-Conference team, as voted on by the nine head coaches:
• Newcomer of the Year: Karli White
• First-Team All-GNAC: Gabriela Pelogi, Sierra Shugarts, Emily Webster, Karli White
• Second-Team All-GNAC: Taylor Hallquist
• Honorable Mention All-GNAC: Grace Eversaul, Ashley Homer, Liv Larson, Emily Nelson
The Vikings finished the regular season with a 15-1-0 overall record and placed second in the GNAC with an 11-1-0 mark, falling just short of capturing a sixth consecutive regular-season league title. WWU was knocked off by regular-season champion Concordia (11-0-1) last Saturday, to have a 39-game winning streak and 40-game unbeaten streak snapped. Western will be the No. 2 seed in this week’s GNAC Championships played in Portland, Ore. (hosted by Concordia), facing No. 3 seed Seattle Pacific on Thursday at 4 pm in the first semifinal match. Concordia will play No. 4 seed NNU at 7 pm in the other semifinal game, with Saturday’s 1 pm championship game determining the league’s automatic bid to the NCAA Division II Championships.
White (North Bend, WA/Mount Si/Seattle U.) was a unanimous first-team selection and was named the conference Newcomer of the Year after finishing the regular season 2nd with 8 assists, 3rd with 24 points, tied for 5th with 8 goals and 5th with 3 game-winning goals. In her first season as a Viking, White scored in 8 of 14 games, with six multiple-point efforts.
Junior forward Gabriela Pelogi (Federal Way, WA) repeated as a First Team All-GNAC selection, and was named to the all-league team for the third time in her career. She led the conference with 33 points and tied for the lead with 14 goals, including a pair of hat tricks. She scored 9 of her 14 goals in GNAC play, ranking 2nd behind Simon Fraser’s Emma Pringle (10). In three seasons at WWU, Pelogi has become a goal-scoring prodigy, ranking 6th in program history with 35 goals and 87 points.
Senior defender Sierra Shugarts (Federal Way, WA/Decatur) also repeated as a first-team selection, but fell just short of capturing her second consecutive GNAC Player of the Year award. After missing the first four games of the season due to injury, Shugarts showed quickly why she was named the 2016 NCAA Division II Player of the Year leading a defense that allowed only 6 goals all season to rank 3rd in NCAA II with a 0.375 goals against average and lead the league with 11 shutouts.
Senior midfielder Emily Webster (Bellingham, WA/Sehome) became just the fourth player in program history to be named First Team All-GNAC three times during a career, and adding in her second-team selection as a freshman, earned all-league honors all four years as a Viking. She joins Catherine Miles (2013-15), Claire Morgan (2007-08, 10), and Alicia Patten (2009-11) as WWU players to earn three First Team All-GNAC awards. Webster was a versatile force for the Vikings on offense, defense and set pieces, recording 4 assists and one goal. She has recorded 22 assists to rank 5th in program history.
Junior defender Taylor Hallquist (Vancouver, WA/Columbia River) was WWU’s lone selection to the GNAC Second Team, moving up from honorable mention all-conference honors a year ago. Hallquist started all 16 games in 2017, logging 1,056 minutes on the backline.
Four Western players also received votes from conference coaches to earn honorable mention selection, led by senior goalkeeper Ashley Homer (Puyallup, WA/College of Saint Rose). Homer led the league with a 0.34 goals against average and recorded 8 shutouts to tie for the GNAC lead. The 2016 Third Team All-American and GNAC Newcomer of the Year has allowed only 14 goals in 40 career games with WWU, and earlier this season set the WWU and GNAC record for consecutive scoreless minutes at 1034:41.
Freshman midfielder Grace Eversaul (Vancouver, WA/Skyview), sophomore forward Liv Larson (Arlington, WA) and sophomore defender Emily Nelson (Puyallup, WA/Bellarmine Prep) were also named All-GNAC Honorable Mention.
The four-team field the sixth annual Great Northwest Athletic Conference Championships features Concordia University (No. 1), WWU (No. 2), Seattle Pacific (No. 3) and Northwest Nazarene (No. 4) that will be played Thursday, Nov. 2 and Saturday, Nov. 4 at Tuominen Yard at Hilken Community Stadium in Portland, Ore.
WWU is the two-time defending GNAC Championships champion, and has played in the title game in each of the previous five tournaments. Thursday’s match vs. rival Seattle Pacific marks the fifth consecutive season that SPU and WWU will play in the GNAC Championships, with the previous four deciding the conference champion.
