BURNABY, B.C. - Northwest Nazarene softball is back on top. In fact, they never left. The top-seeded Nighthawks defeated three-seed Western Washington 3-2 in Saturday's GNAC Championships final to defend their 2022 victory and claim the 2023 title.
 
This is also the third time in the last five seasons that the Nighthawks have won the GNAC Softball Championship. In addition, the Nighthawks have now won more GNAC tournaments than any other team in the conference, with WWU (two) the only other program with multiple. NNU is now 13-5 all-time in GNAC postseason play.
 
The win was NNU's 36^th of the year, setting a new program record for wins in a season by passing last years' total of 35. The Nighthawks have won 10 in a row and are 17-2 since April 2.
 
With the GNAC's automatic berth in hand, NNU will now await the final NCAA regional rankings to see what seed, location, and opponent they will receive ahead of next week's regionals from May 11-13. The selection show is set to air on NCAA.com on Monday, May 8 at 8:00 a.m. Mountain.
 
Booth was named the 2023 GNAC Softball Championships MVP after finishing the tournament with two-complete game victories under her belt, including a no-hitter on Friday. Booth secured the title for NNU with a seven-inning performance, allowing two runs on seven hits with four strikeouts and no walks. She is now a two-time GNAC Championships MVP, also winning it last season.
 
She also finished the game with one RBI on a sacrifice fly that proved to be critical down the stretch. For the tournament, Booth finished with a 0.88 ERA through 16 innings and allowed just three runs, two earned, on 11 hits and three walks with 10 strikeouts.
 
Much like Friday, Northwest Nazarene got the offense going early, putting the first three batters on base with Clarissa Moreno drawing a walk and Tori Hensley putting an infield single off the outstretched glove of WWU starter Mareena Ramirez. Reigning GNAC Player of the Year Maia McNicoll loaded the bases for NNU with a walk, setting the table for Booth's sacrifice fly to bring across the first run of the game. McNicoll's walk was the first of three on the day as she showed extreme patience in the batter's box.
 
The Vikings would even the score in the bottom of the second, notching three straight one-out hits.
 
Ramirez and Booth then traded three-up, three-down innings in the third before the NNU bats sparked up again in the top of the fourth. Junior Abigail Gagnon got the offense started with an eight-pitch walk before center-fielder Madison Felter reached base on a first-pitch infield single. It was the Western Washington defense that came through in the bases-loaded situation later in the inning, however, with Ramirez forcing a fly-out to end the NNU threat.
 
After two innings where the pitchers and defense ruled the diamond, Felter struck a leadoff single into left field to ignite a two-run inning for the Nighthawks. Those runs came for NNU on one swing, a pinch-hit home run by freshman Emma Bumatay that clattered off the scoreboard and gave Northwest Nazarene a 3-1 lead heading into the bottom of the sixth. 
 
With elimination on the line, the Vikings managed to get one run in the bottom of the seventh with a two-out RBI single. That would be all they would get, though, as NNU shortstop Moreno put away a game-clinching pop fly to secure the final out of the tournament. Read Full Article