Thanks to an impressive year that included seven team championships and a high level of success across all programs, Western Washington is the winner of the 2021-22 Great Northwest Athletic Conference All-Sports Championship.
The Vikings led all GNAC institutions with a score of 9.24. It is Western Washington’s 13th all-sports championship, returning to the top spot in the conference standings for the first time since 2016. From 2017-19, WWU finished 2nd in the standings, and have finished in the top two in the standings in all 19 years the trophy has been awarded.
Simon Fraser finished second in the all-sports standings with a score of 7.61 while Western Oregon was third with a score of 6.76. It is the highest-ever finish in the standings for Simon Fraser, which finished third in 2015 and 2017.
WWU also swept both the men’s and women’s all-sports titles. The Western men finished with a score of 8.11, well ahead of second-place Simon Fraser (7.03) and third-place Western Oregon (6.87). The Viking women won with a score of 9.06 with Simon Fraser second at 7.08 and Seattle Pacific third at 6.53.
It was an impressive year across the board for Western Washington with the Vikings finishing no worse than third in all but one of the 15 conference sports the school sponsors. The haul included men’s championships in golf, indoor track and field and outdoor track and field and women’s championships in basketball, golf, rowing and volleyball.
“This was another fantastic year by our student-athletes, coaches and support staff, navigating a lot of challenges to achieve great success not only in competition winning this all-around award but also in the classroom,” said Western Washington director of athletics Steve Card. “The amount of effort, determination and perseverance that goes into winning this combined award is quite impressive on so many levels. To win seven GNAC championships with such great competition across the conference footprint is an impressive achievement. To say that we are proud to win this award is an understatement.”
The GNAC All-Sports Championship is determined using a unique points system, which gives each school an average score based on its finish in each conference sport and the number of GNAC sports sponsored by each institution. The averages are based on regular-season finishes in football, volleyball, men’s and women’s soccer, men’s and women’s basketball, baseball and softball and conference meet finishes in men’s and women’s cross country, men’s and women’s indoor track and field, men’s and women’s outdoor track and field, men’s and women’s golf and women’s rowing.
The system treats each conference title equally, with 10 points awarded to first place with values dropping incrementally based on the number of schools sponsoring that sport.
The conference did not award the All-Sports Championship in 2020 or 2021 due to the cancellation of seasons necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
