Sunday, May 15, 2022

PORTLAND, Ore. – For the first time in conference history, the GNAC has had two baseball teams qualify for the NCAA West Regional. After Northwest Nazarene and Western Oregon tied for the regular-season championship and clashed in the GNAC Champioinships, both clubs will see their seasons continue.

Northwest Nazarene was named the No. 4 seed in a six-team bracket comprised of two three-team double-elimination pods. The Nighthawks will face No. 5 Cal Poly Ponoma on Thursday at 2 p.m. That game will be played at Point Loma University and the top-seeded Sea Lions will await the loser at 5 p.m.

The Nighthawks received an at-large selection despite a pair of losses to Western Oregon in the GNAC Championships. The committee respected a body of work that included a regular season GNAC co-championship and a challenging non-conference schedule that featured road series against each of the West Region’s top two seeds.

Western Oregon was named the No. 6 seed and will be in the opposite pod of the regional. The Wolves already knew they were making the tournament after winning the GNAC Championships with a 5-2 win over Northwest Nazarene on Saturday. Western Oregon will face No. 3 Cal State Monterey Bay, the CCAA regular-season champions, on Thursday at 4 p.m. The loser will face No. 2 seed and host Azusa Pacific at 7:30 p.m.

Western Oregon played its best baseball at the right time, winnning three consecutive elimination games to win their first GNAC Championships since 2018. Dating back to the regular season, WOU has won five of its last six games against NNU.

The goal for every team will be to reach the Division II National Championships in Cary, North Carolina on June 4-11. Northwest Nazarene became the first GNAC team to go to Cary in 2021.