Western Oregon Picks Up Two Wins Over Northwest Nazarene

With the wins, the first-place Wolves improved to 29-13 overall and to 17-5 in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference.

Mike Ward Photo courtesy: WOU Athletics

MONMOUTH, Ore. - Western Oregon used lots of offense in game one and the pitching of Mike Ward in the nightcap to claim 10-7 and 2-0 victories over Northwest Nazarene on Friday afternoon at the WOU Baseball Field.

With the wins, the first-place Wolves improved to 29-13 overall and to 17-5 in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference. The Crusaders dropped to 24-18 on the year and to 8-14 in GNAC play. The two teams will wrap up the four-game series on Saturday with a doubleheader scheduled to start at noon.

In the first game, Western Oregon scored all the runs that they would need in the first three innings, striking for four in the first, three in the second and two more in the third. Dylan Bruck had a hand in the scoring in all three innings, leading off in the first with a triple and scoring, hitting a sacrifice fly in the second and in the third he singled, stole two bases and then scored.

Drew Humphrey added a solo home run in the sixth for the hosts, but the Wolves still had to hold off a potent Northwest Nazarene squad that laced 14 hits in the game, including three each by Sergio Rodriguez, Cole Smith and Jimmy VanBeek. Rodriguez had a pair of doubles, an RBI and scored twice.

Bruck had three hits in the game for the Wolves, as did Cesar Lopez. Ryan Lewis and Humphrey had two hits each for WOU.

In the second game, WOU's Ward tossed a seven-inning, four-hit shutout, improving to 6-1 on the season. The sophomore right-hander had seven strikeouts and did not walk a batter.

The Wolves didn't do a lot either with NNU starter Chris Mahelona, but the hosts managed to scratch across a run in the first and another in the fourth. In the first, Travis Moore singled home a run and in the fourth Moore led off with a double and later scored on a sacrifice fly off the bat of Tony Jones.

Mahelona gave up only five hits and struck out six in the complete game loss. Tyson Nelson and Moore had two of those hits each, while no NNU player had more than one hit.

Source: WOU Athletics

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