PORTLAND, Ore. - With the season just a week away, the GNAC announced the results of the 2024 GNAC Baseball Preseason Coaches Poll on Thursday, with Northwest Nazarene ranked second out of the five conference teams.

Western Oregon, the defending conference champions, takes the top spot with 21 points, just one point over NNU at 20. Central Washington and Montana State Billings tied for third in the poll with 13 points, while Saint Martin's rounds out the rankings at eight points. WOU received two first-place votes, while NNU, CWU, and MSUB each garnered one.

The Wolves won the conference regular season in 2023 with a 20-9 GNAC mark. The Nighthawks finished 17-15 and CWU 16-15 to fill out the conference tournament field, where WOU did not lose a game to also claim the 2023 tournament championship.

The Nighthawks will look to get back to the top of the GNAC after winning at least a share of the conference title in both 2021 and 2022. 

NNU will open the 2024 campaign in California next week, visiting Point Loma for four games over Feb. 1-3. GNAC play will begin with a bang on March 1-2, when NNU hosts WOU in a clash of the top two teams in the conference in each of the last three seasons.

 

Rank	Team (FPV)	Points	2023 Record	GNAC Record (Finish)
1	Western Oregon (2)	21	30-15	20-9 (1st)
2	Northwest Nazarene (1)	20	24-29	17-15 (2nd)
T3	Central Washington (1)	13	22-29	16-15 (3rd)
T3	Montana State Billings (1)	13	21-27	12-18 (4th)
5	Saint Martin's	8	15-29	11-19 (5th)