By: Burke De Boer Sports Editor
The baseball team went 6-1 on the week, facing Saint Martin’s and then taking a long road trip to play Montana State Billings.
Western Oregon met the Saint Martin’s Saints on neutral ground in Newberg after the Monmouth home opener was once again postponed due to weather conditions.
The Wolves took both games, with scores of 4-3 and 3-2.
Junior Nyles Nygaard hit a homerun in the fourth inning to open Western scoring. Nygaard dinged five fouls in a row before sending the ball out of the park.
Later in the inning, junior Garrett Anderson hit a single that picked up two RBIs.
The Saints made a comeback in the seventh inning, but the Wolves were able to pull ahead and secure the victory in the bottom half of the inning. After he stole third base, senior Brock Pradere was batted in for the go ahead run by first-year student Connor McCord.
McCord then opened up the scoring in the second game, when he hit a two-RBI double in the third inning.
Saint Martin’s went on to tie the game with a home run, but Western took the lead and the win when junior Jacob Martinez scored on a throwing error in the eighth inning.
With the two wins early in the week, the Wolves traveled to Montana State Billings to face the Yellowjackets. The first order of business on April 14 was finishing the March 6 game that had been halted due to weather.
The Wolves held a 7-0 lead from March. First-year student Torreahno Sweet hit a two RBI double and then was batted in himself by senior Boog Leach to ensure the 10-0 win.
The games against Montana State Billings continued in a similarly high scoring fashion. The Wolves won both halves of the first day of play, with scores of 14-7 and 8-7.
Going into the eighth inning of the first game, the Wolves trailed 6-7. Sweet batted in McCord to tie the game up, and a three-RBI double from Nyles Nygaard took the commanding victory.
“They brought in a new pitcher and I was in the box just trying to get a good pitch to hit,” said Nygaard. “The pitcher threw two straight balls to me to bring the count to 2-0 so I knew he had to come after me. I was looking for a pitch over the plate and he gave it to me so I put my best swing on it.”
Nygaard picked up another RBI in the ninth, when he batted in senior Joey Crunkilton.
The second game didn’t start as planned. The Wolves went into the sixth inning trailing 2-6, but Nygaard and Crunkilton picked up two RBIs a piece in the inning, helping to jump-start the offense and ultimately win the game.
The first game of the second day belonged to the Yellowjackets, who destroyed the Wolves by a score of 2-18. But they seemed to get all their run scoring out of their system in one go and the Wolves were back to winning ways to finish the series.
The final game ended 8-3 in favor of the Wolves, who surged to the lead with two runs in the first inning.
Senior Trey Smith pitched a complete game, striking out four on the way to his third win of the season.
The Wolves advance to 19-9 on the season and 18-6 in conference, and currently sit on top of the GNAC standings.
Contact the author at journalsports@wou.edu
