By: Jamal Smith Sports editor
The Western Oregon baseball team has been a perennial powerhouse in the GNAC for over a decade, winning 13 consecutive GNAC titles. The trophy case in the New P.E. Building is loaded with hardware as a testament to their success.
Heading into the GNAC Championship game on May 13, the Wolves had all reason to believe that they could add yet another trophy into their case, but standing in their way was Northwest Nazarene University.
Prior to the championship game against the Crusaders, Western dropped their first game in the GNAC Championships on Thursday against Montana State Billings University, but then later in the day, in a do-or-die scenario, dominated Nazarene 14-3.
Then on Friday, the Wolves got revenge against Billings when they dominated every facet of the game and came away victorious with the score of 14-3. NNU won their game setting up an intriguing matchup between the Wolves and Crusaders with the winner taking home the coveted championship trophy.
The Crusaders struck first, and in the first inning, Northwest Nazarene came away with two runs. However, the determined Wolves responded by scoring a run in the second, third, and fourth inning, and then three runs in the fifth inning when senior infielder Marcus Madden doubled home two runs and then later scored himself on a throwing error from the Crusaders’ shortstop. The Wolves led 6-2 going into the bottom of the fifth.
Just when it appeared that all the momentum swung in the Wolves’ favor, the Crusaders started scoring runs in bunches. Northwest Nazarene added a run in the fifth inning and then scored six runs in the sixth inning to give them a 9-6 advantage.
Western showed their never-say-die attitude by scoring two runs in the seventh inning to close the gap to one run, but the Wolves were inevitably unable to overcome Nazarene’s late game flurry. The final score was 9-8.
Although the Wolves fell short in achieving their goal of winning 14 straight GNAC titles, they gave it everything they had until the final out, and they should be proud of their efforts.
Contact the author at jsmith15@wou.edu or on Twitter @journalsportWOU
