ELLENSBURG, Wash. – Northwest Nazarene baseball has done it again. For the second year in a row and third in the last five seasons, the Nighthawks are GNAC Tournament Champions after an 8-7 victory over Montana State Billings in Friday's title game.
NNU also won the GNAC Regular Season Championship for the second-straight season and the fourth time in the last five years, solidifying themselves as the premier program in the conference across that stretch.
The Nighthawks will now await the NCAA DII Baseball Selection Show on Sunday night to find out their fate for NCAA Regionals. With the GNAC losing its automatic bid to the NCAA postseason, the conference champion is not guaranteed a berth to regionals. That said, as the Nighthawks were ranked No. 1 in the latest West Region rankings, it should just be a matter of what seed NNU will be, and whether they would host opening pods of the regional as a top two seed. The NCAA bid would be the program's fourth in the last five seasons.
The win gives the Nighthawks their 40
th of the season (40-13 overall), the first time in program history that a squad has reached the 40-win mark.
Friday's game was a winner-take-all contest for the title, as both teams had dropped a game on Thursday in the round-robin format. Due to being the top seed, NNU advanced automatically to the championship, while MSUB had to defeat CWU earlier Friday to advance.
In the championship game, NNU wasted no time in getting on the scoreboard, as with one out in the top of the first
Bryan Rojas singled,
Kaleb Karpstein walked, and the pair were brought home by a two-RBI triple from
Adrian Arechiga.
The Nighthawks added one more in the second when
Nin Burns II pummeled his team-leading 12
th home run of the season, a solo shot that made it 3-0. Three more runs came across in the top of the third, with
Jason Bell drawing a bases-loaded walk and
Carter Walsh delivering a two-run single to extend the lead to 6-0.
After two scoreless innings were delivered by NNU starter
Cole Calnon, MSUB was able to score two runs in the bottom of the third to cut into the deficit. Karpstein immediately got one of those runs back, however, blasting an opposite-field solo homer to lead off the top of the fourth.
The Yellowjackets were not done, though, cutting the NNU lead to just one, 7-6, with four runs in the bottom of the fifth. Both teams were held off the scoreboard in the sixth and seventh innings, but it was NNU that finally broke through again with a run in the eighth in an RBI triple from Calnon to push the lead back to two.
Calnon moved from the mound to the designated hitter role with two outs in the bottom of the sixth, when
Jonathan Zayas entered in relief. He was effective, retiring seven of the next eight Yellowjackets, with the only baserunner reaching on a walk.
After Zayas got the first batter of the bottom of the ninth to foul out, MSUB's Bodee Wright tripled to right center and came in to score on a bunt single from Zack Blaszak. NNU then turned to closer
Wade Duncan to get the final two outs.
Duncan's first pitch was lined into center field, but
Carter Walsh got a great jump on it and made an incredible diving catch to rob MSUB of a base hit. The next Yellowjacket worked a full count, but then lined out straight to
Casey Wayne in left field to end the game.
Calnon and Walsh both had three hits at the plate in the game, with Walsh and Arechiga each driving in two runs. Calnon's final pitching line in the victory on the mound was 5.2 innings, allowing six runs on nine hits with five strikeouts.
Ernesto Lugo-Canchola was named the GNAC Tournament MVP after his stellar outing on the mound on Thursday night against MSUB. The GNAC Newcomer of the Year was nearly untouchable, tossing a complete-game, nine-inning shutout with eight strikeouts. He allowed just two hits, both singles, and two walks in the 100-pitch effort. Teammates
Cole Calnon,
Casey Wayne,
Nin Burns II, and
Kaleb Karpstein were also named to the All-Tournament Team.
Casey Wayne also had an incredible tournament at the plate, reaching base in all 11 of his plate appearances with four hits and an absurd seven walks. He pinch-hit in the opener against Central Washington and drew a walk. Against MSUB in NNU's second game on Thursday, he started in left field and went 3-3 with two homers, a single, two walks, and four runs scored. In Friday's title game, the Yellowjackets did not want anything to do with the senior, as he walked four times along with a single in the fourth inning.
As mentioned, NNU will be watching closely on Sunday evening when the NCAA Division II Baseball Selection Show reveals the bracket for the 2025 tournament. The show will be released in its entirety at 8:30 p.m. Mountain Time on the NCAA.com website.
