David Ghan/The Falcon Redshirt freshman Melissa Reich scans the court looking for an open teammate during Saturday’s game. The 75-58 SPU victory moved the Falcons to 25-0 overall.

Expectations were high Saturday evening as 540 fans packed into Royal Brougham Pavilion to witness the Falcons clinch the No. 1 seed in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference (GNAC), defeating Northwest Nazarene University (NNU) 75-58.

With Saturday's win, the Falcons moved to 25-0 overall and 16-0 in the GNAC.

"To be honest, it's not [that] surprising," senior forward Libby Magnuson said of her team's success this season. "With all the work that everyone put in, I think that it was kind of almost expected."

Falcons head coach Julie van Beek said that about 50 people from her church were in the audience to support her and the team. Two of those members held up a sign that read, "Coach Julie is a cinch to clinch the GNAC title."

While perhaps not a "cinch," the Falcons managed to out-hustle their opponents on the boards, out-rebounding the Crusaders 42-34, which led to easy fast-break points and allowed the Falcons to hold a comfortable lead throughout the game.

With less than five minutes left in the first half, Magnuson grabbed her third offensive rebound off a missed jumper by senior forward Jessie Christensen. The possession ended with a three-pointer made by senior guard Jackie Hollands to put the Falcons up 34-18.

In the second half, the Falcons maintained their lead with timely offensive rebounds by Christensen.

"Both our posts and guards did an excellent job getting boards especially on the offensive end," Hollands said.

Christensen ended with 10 points and a season high of 11 rebounds. The Falcons finished with 17 second-chance points, while the Crusaders had four.

The rebounding also allowed the Falcons to score in transition, as they finished with a 23-10 advantage in fast-break scoring.

"We know that NNU is a tough team that always goes hard to the boards, so rebounding was the main focus for me this game," Christensen said of her performance.

The last time these two teams met, the Falcons were out-rebounded by 12 (41-29), which is the most they have been out-rebounded by all season.

Van Beek said that, this time, instead of mostly man-to-man, she had her team playing more zone defenses to disrupt the Crusaders' offense and control more rebounds.

"We played great defense, hustled and rebounded the ball," sophomore guard Daesha Henderson said. "We just went all out and played our game for most of the 40 minutes."

For the fourth consecutive game, Hollands led her team in points, with 17. Sophomore forward Megan Hoisington also contributed 12 points off the bench, all of which were scored in the second half.

For the Crusaders, forward Kristin Hein led her team in three categories, ending with 13 points, nine rebounds and two blocks, while also tying fellow teammate Nicole Schutte with three steals.

Other than SPU, who is ranked second in the nation, there are only two other teams in the country that are currently undefeated. One is No.1 ranked Delta State University.

In postseason, the 64 teams are divided into eight regions: West, South Central, South Atlantic, South, Northeast, North Central, Great Lakes and East. The winner of each region goes on to play in the Elite Eight.

As of now, the Falcons are seeded No. 1 in the Western Region and begin postseason play on March 14, where a location and opponent have still yet to be determined.

The neutral sites where the teams play their tournament games are determined by the location of the top four teams in the region, van Beek said, which are Seattle Pacific, Cal State Chico, Cal State San Bernardino and GNAC rival University of Alaska, Anchorage.

Before the post-season begins, however, the Falcons must complete their regular season schedule with two more home games versus Western Oregon University (8-17, 4-12 GNAC) and Saint Martin's University (17-8, 10-6 GNAC) on Thursday and Saturday, respectively. Both games are scheduled for tip-off at 7 p.m.