NAMPA, Idaho – Northwest Nazarene baseball came off of their bye week strong on Friday, walking off Central Washington 7-4 in game one and routing the Wildcats 17-4 in game two.
NNU improves to 21-13 on the year and 13-5 in GNAC play, while CWU falls to 11-25 overall and 5-13 in conference action.
Game One
The Nighthawks went down 1-0 early, as Central Washington tallied the game's first run in the top of the third. NNU would finally break through in the fifth, as
Quentin Ayers and
Ryan Dearing notched back-to-back RBI doubles and
Parker Price followed with an RBI triple to take a 3-1 lead.
CWU tied things up with a run in the top of the sixth, but the Nighthawks would bounce back with a run in the bottom of the inning from a
Walker Moore RBI double. The Wildcats tied it again in the top of the seventh, scraping across a run on a balk to make it 4-4.
It would take until the bottom of the ninth before the score would change again, and it changed in a big way as with two outs,
Grant Kerry singled and
Duke Pahukoa was hit by a pitch before
Alex Salsman launched a three-run, no-doubt, walkoff home run to left.
Kerry finished with three hits while Price added two.
Spencer Schwehr started for NNU and went 5.2 innings, allowing three runs on six hits with four strikeouts.
Joseph Ihli tossed an inning of relief,
Blake McFadden went 1.2 innings, and
Max Holtzclaw got the last two outs of the top of the ninth on one pitch with a double play to earn the win.
Game Two
Spurred by the heroics of game one, the Nighthawks bats came alive in game two as NNU scored 17 runs in just six innings at the plate. The rout started in the first with a
Grant Kerry two-run homer, before NNU scored five in the second on RBI singles from
Kyle Payne,
Ryan Dearing,
Parker Price, and
Duke Pahukoa along with a sacrifice fly from Kerry.
Haden Keller added a two-run homer in the fourth and Pahukoa scored on a wild pitch to make it 10-1. The Nighthawks then plated seven in the sixth, with the first six batters all recording singles before Payne and Dearing had back-to-back two-RBI doubles.
NNU totaled 21 hits in the game, with four players recording three each in Dearing, Keller, Pahukoa, and Payne. Dearing, Payne, and Kerry also had three RBI.
Rumble Reyes and
Cameron Bogard also added two hits.
Brock Moffitt started and went 5.1 innings to earn the win, allowing three earned runs and eight hits while striking out nine.
Next Up
The Nighthawks and Wildcats will play two more tomorrow, with first pitch of game one of the doubleheader scheduled for 1:00 p.m.
