This week in Falcon sports

Junior Titus Grant scored a goal six minutes into the game against Northwest Nazarene University last Thursday, and the goals kept on coming as the Falcons beat the Nighthawks 5-2. Nik Reierson and Mario Vukic also scored in the first half, and Trevor Lee and Grant contributed goals in the second half to account for the Falcons five goals. Lorenzo Valentini’s two goals were the only ones the Nighthawks scored, even though both teams had the same amount of shots.

It ended up being tougher for the Falcons to score in the next game against the Montana State Billings. It was a physical and defensive game, and a foul committed in the box by the Falcons Jose Benevides led to the game’s only goal. Shantik Bedrosian stepped up to the penalty spot and calmly put the shot past goalie Lars Helleren with ten minutes to go in the game. The Yellowjackets fouled the Falcons early and often in the contest, committing 26 fouls and earning four yellow cards in the process.

“It was really key for us to keep our heads tonight,” forward Skylor Rose said. “We, of course, have gone down that road and done the opposite, but this time we definitely did a lot better.”

“Towards the end it started getting more and more rough and they started doing more and more things, but I think we kept our heads and didn’t stoop down to their level,” Falcons forward Titus Grant said.

The team will now head on the road to face Concordia University next Thursday.

The men’s and women’s Cross-Country teams traveled to Bellingham to compete in the Western Washington Classic last Saturday.

In the women’s race, the top finishers for the Falcons were junior Dania Holmberg, who finished fifth with a time of 22:01.5. and senior Kate Lilly, who finished in eighth with a time of 22:14.9. The Falcons finished with a team score of 113, for a fourth-place team finish.

In the men’s race, Juniors Colin Boutin and Elius Graff and Sophomore Colby Otero were able to finish in the top 50 runners, Boutin being the fastest finisher of the three, with a 30th-place finish. These finishes led the Falcons to an eighth-place team finish with 188 points.

In two weeks, both teams will compete in the GNAC Championships in Billings, Montana.

Volleyball travelled to Canada and Bellingham last week, losing a very close match to Simon Fraser University. They also lost to Western Washington University, the second ranked team in the nation. On Tuesday, they achieved a three set victory against Saint Martin’s University. 

The Falcons lost the first set against Simon Fraser but fought hard and won the next two sets by the same score of 25-23. SFU took control of the fourth set and won it and were leading the fifth set 10-4 before the Falcons made a comeback to tie the match again at ten. But the comeback effort ultimately fell short, as Simon Fraser won 15-13. Senior Gabby Oddo had 16 kills and 13 digs, while Junior Maddie Batiste had 14 kills and 16 digs.

The Vikings of Western Washington showed why they are the second-ranked team in the nation, completely dominating the Falcons by scores of 25-14, 25-8 and 25-7. Oddo had more than half of the Falcons total kills with seven.

On Tuesday, the Falcons won against Saint Martin’s University. The sets got closer as the games went on, but the Falcons pulled out a victory as they won sets by scores of 25-14, 25-20 and 25-23. 

The Falcons continue on the road next week against Montana State University, the team directly ahead of them in the standings. 

Also this week, the Women’s Soccer GNAC all-academic team was released. Sixteen Falcons made the cut, the most of any school in the conference.