NAMPA, Idaho – Northwest Nazarene baseball took two games from Saint Martin's on Saturday and won the series three games to one.
The Nighthawks are now 23-27 overall and 17-15 in GNAC play.
Game 1
Like game one of the series, the Saints jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the top of the first inning once again. This time the Nighthawks immediately answered back with three runs of their own in the bottom half of the inning.
Duke Pahukoa drove in two with a double and
Manny Casillas brought in one run with a sac fly.
In the top of the second inning, the Saints scored one run on a solo home run by their leadoff hitter Brady Bean. In the bottom of the second,
Austin Thomason scored on an RBI by
Kaleb Karpstein to bring the game back to a tie at 4-4.
SMU took their third and final lead of the game in the sixth inning with a sac fly that brought the score to 5-4. In the bottom of the seventh, Pahukoa hit an RBI single to bring the game back to a tie. Casillas was the next batter and he hit an RBI single to bring home the go ahead run that would later prove to be the decider.
Nick Irwin entered the game in relief after
Henry Clark started for the Nighthawks. Irwin threw 1.1 innings and allowed just one earned run.
Jonathan Zayas threw most of the game, with 5.1 innings pitched. He struck out three batters and allowed one run.
Ty Pohlmann closed out the final two innings, striking out four of the seven batters he faced.
Game 2
Game two featured a stellar performance both offensively and defensively.
Brock Moffitt started the game and threw 4.2 innings. He had a no-hitter going through 4.1 innings of work. Moffitt struck out seven batters to reclaim the lead for most strikeouts on the team after Pohlmann claimed the crown in game one.
The Nighthawks offense was active through the whole game. 10 different batters had hits. The most impressive stretch came when NNU scored 10 runs from the start of the fourth to the end of the sixth inning.
Mason Leavitt,
Shane Jamison,
Tyler Best, and
Quentin Ayers all had two-hit games for the Nighthawks.
Kyle Payne had the only three-hit game. The biggest swing of the day was Payne's grand slam in the fifth inning.
Shane "Bon" Martin entered the game to pitch after Moffitt and threw 1.1 innings while striking out one and not allowing a hit.
Kyle Ethridge pitched the final inning and got one strikeout en route to the 12-3 final.
On Deck
The Nighthawks have next week off, while the other four GNAC teams finish conference play.
