Point Loma Nazarene volleyball star Abigail Nua is the two-time defending PacWest Conference Player of the Year. She won this year\u2019s award despite missing the last eight matches with a knee injury. Nua is nowhere near 100% healthy, but she told head coach Jonathan Scott there was no chance she was not going to let a chance to make history get away.<\/p>\n
\u201cJon kind of sat me down and I was like, are you okay?\u201d says Nua. \u201cI just had to be like, I gotta suck it up. I gotta play for my girls. And so, I just said, well, you’re hurt. Deal with it and let’s play ball.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Saturday night, Nua did more than that. In the 4th and final set of the Division II West Regional final against Fresno Pacific at Golden Gymnasium, Nua had nine kills, including the one that put the Sea Lions into the Elite 8 for the first time ever.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey fought really hard. That’s something we talk about all the time, is let your actions show how hungry you are,\u201d says Scott. \u201cAnd it was really obvious tonight how hungry we were.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scott is in his 12th year as the Sea Lions head coach. He\u2019s built the program to the point that PLNU is now a consistent presence in the NCAA Tournament.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s pretty cool. Literally every day, I think about winning a national championship,\u201d says Scott, who has a legitimate chance to make that happen this year.<\/p>\n
The Sea Lions are the #3 national seed. They open against #6 Bentley on Thursday morning (the match starts at 9:00 a.m. San Diego time) and they just won a West Regional that was far and away the deepest and most talent-laden of the eight regional sites.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really excited,\u201d says Nua. \u201cI could say it 10,000 more times, I love this group of girls. I can\u2019t wait to travel with them, I\u2019m really grateful for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
As much fun as this trip is going not be, there is also business to be taken care of.<\/p>\n
\u201cI gave them an order at the end of the match to enjoy it tonight, to feel good, hug a lot of people, and then when the wake up in the morning no more smiles. It\u2019s time to go and we are not satisfied,\u201d says Scott.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s Elite 8 is being played in Sioux Falls, SD. NBC 7 meteorologist Sheena Parveen says with wind chill, the high temperature there after the Sea Lions arrive is going to feel like 12 degrees. That\u2019s about a 68-degree drop from the San Diego coast. How will they handle the extreme weather change? Like any good Californian, obviously.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll still be in my Rainbows (sandals),\u201d says Scott.<\/p>\n
Win a national title, and nobody will question any fashion choices.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Point Loma Nazarene volleyball star Abigail Nua is the two-time defending PacWest Conference Player of the Year. She…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":434366,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,1317,11009,87847,3549,7264,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,88415],"class_list":{"0":"post-434365","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-ncaa","12":"tag-ncaa-tournament","13":"tag-point-loma","14":"tag-san-diego","15":"tag-sandiego","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-united-states-of-america","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-usa","22":"tag-volleyball"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115686687797017582","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}