SAN DIEGO, Calif. – Northwest Nazarene baseball saw their season come to a close on Friday at the NCAA West Regional, falling twice to Point Loma by scores of 7-4 and 21-5.
The Nighthawks close their season with an overall record of 31-23 and a GNAC mark of 21-11, earning a share of the GNAC regular season championship for the second-straight season and receiving a bid to the NCAA West Regional for the second year in a row.
On Thursday, four-seed NNU won their opener at the regional with a come-from-behind 10-7 victory over five-seed Cal Poly Pomona to advance to the best-of-three series against the top seed and fourth in the nation Point Loma.
Game One – PLNU 7, NNU 4
Point Loma's Otto Kemp led off the game with a solo homer to left to quickly put the Sea Lions up 1-0. They would add one more in the third and one in the fourth to take a three-run lead.
NNU got on the board in the bottom of the fourth inning, with
Alex Salsman drilling his second home run in as many days with a solo shot to left. PLNU responded with two more runs in the top of the fifth, though, to take a 5-1 advantage.
NNU's bats started to wake up though, as two more solo homers were launched in the bottom of the fifth by
Parker Price and
Haden Keller. The teams would trade runs in the seventh, with
Ryan Dearing hitting his second home run of the regional in the bottom half to make it 6-4.
That was all that the Nighthawks would get, though, as Point Loma added on an insurance run in the eighth and were then able to close NNU out with scoreless frames in the eighth and ninth.
Haden Keller started for NNU, going five innings and allowing five runs on six hits with five strikeouts and three walks.
Shane Martin threw 2.2 innings of relief, allowing two runs (one earned) with five strikeouts.
Max Holtzclaw got the final four outs, giving up two hits and striking out three.
NNU had just one less hit in the game than PLNU with 11 to the Sea Lions' 12, but were not able to have any of those seven non-homer hits come before the four solo shots to generate more runs.
Keller led the offense with three hits, including a home run and a double. Price and
Grant Kerry each had two hits.
Game Two – PLNU 21, NNU 5
Point Loma's high-powered offense came out firing right away in game two, scoring 14 runs in the first three innings with five in the first, three in the second, and six in the third.
NNU got two back in the top of the second on a two-run homer from
Kyle Payne. The Nighthawks would then score one run each in the fourth, fifth, and sixth, as
Alex Salsman,
Parker Price, and
Grant Kerry all hit solo homers.
For the second-straight game, the four homers were all that the Nighthawks offense would muster as NNU fell 21-5.
All told, there were 11 home runs in the second game and 17 on the day between the two teams.
Spencer Schwehr started for NNU and was followed by
Nick Irwin,
Blake McFadden,
Brennan Patterson,
Colton Makinster,
Nathan Galusha, and
Cameron Bogard.
