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NAMPA, Idaho – The Crusader baseball team pushed their playoff hopes beyond the final out of the regular season, only to end up getting their hearts broken.

Brad Birch's single to center provided the second walk-off win of the day for the Yellowjackets, who swept a season-ending Great Northwest Athletic Conference doubleheader, 6-5 and 3-2, from Northwest Nazarene.

With Birch's one swing, NNU felt heartbreak as the back-to-back losses sent St. Martin's to the three-team, GNAC playoffs instead of the Crusaders (18-31 overall, 13-19 GNAC).

"It was a rough season," NNU baseball coach Rocke Musgraves said. "We will use it to see what direction we need to go in."

Birch provided the same heroic base hit for MSU Billings (16-30, 13-19) to start the day, spoiling a Crusader comeback.

NNU trailed 5-1 heading into the eighth inning before Josh Hatfield, Jeremy Richardson and Kyle Thomson all scored on errors, then pitcher Andrew Groves, pinch-running, scored on an error in the top of the ninth to tie it, 5-5.

The 'Jackets answered as Casey Merritt walked and scored on Birch's two-out base hit up the middle.

That left the Crusaders still looking for one more win to clinch a playoff berth, and NNU came out fighting in the season finale for both squads.

Down 2-0 early, Tate Glasgow tripled and scored on an error in the fourth inning, then Nick Morelli reached on an error and scored on another MSU Billings miscue in the fifth, tying the ballgame.

Neither team scored again through the regulation seven innings, forcing extra frames where the Yellowjackets finished off the sweep with Birch's second walk-off winner of the day, this time with one out in the bottom of the ninth.

The sweep by MSU Billings finished the collegiate career for five NNU seniors – pitchers Aaron Vaughn and Ryan Kuhn, and fielders Sam Cook, Barak Watson and Richardson.
Cook finished with a hit in both games Saturday, while Richardson scored a run in the opener.

"I am sad to see our seniors go, but now they are on to the next chapter in their lives," Musgraves said. 

Kuhn pitched in both contests, working 3 1-3 innings of relief, and Vaughn, who pitched a complete-game on Thursday, added 2 2-3 innings of relief in the season finale.