Box Score 1 | Box Score 2 ELLENSBURG, WA (Mar. 8) -- The Central Washington University baseball team earned a double header split with the Northwest Nazarene Crusaders for the second consecutive day to earn a 2-2 series split with the Great Northwest Athletic Conference foe.  The Crusaders won game one 8-6, and the Wildcats evened the score by winning 6-1 in the nightcap.

CWU now stands with a 7-9 overall record nd a 3-5 mark in GNAC play.  NNU now sits with a 9-12 record, 5-3 in the GNAC.

Game two:
The long ball stole the show for the Wildcats in their game two victory as Kasey Bielec (Port Orchard, WA, North Mason), Cory Welch (Las Vegas, NV, Bishop Gorman) and Scott Stone (Corvallis, OR, Crescent Valley) all hit homeruns in the game. 

Welch's round tripper gave CWU an early 2-0 in the game, as he scored Kyle Baumgartner (Enumclaw, WA, Enumclaw) who reached on a fielding error earlier in the inning.  The Crusaders answered by scoring one run in the second inning, but Bielec replied with a solo homerun in the bottom of the third inning to regain a two run advantage for the home team at 3-1.

With the Wildcats up 4-1 in the sixth inning, Stone gave the Wildcats a little more wiggle room by blasting a three run shot right around the right field foul pole.  Jaykob Sells (Mountlake Terrace, WA, Mountlake Terrace) followed that up with a RBI double to give the Wildcats a comfortable 6-1 advantage.

Welch also lent his arm to the CWU baseball team as he pitched the final two innings to pick up his third save of the season.  Welch threw the final 1 1/3 innings giving up just one hit and striking out one batter.

Kurtis Pitcher (Seabeck, WA, Klahowya) started on the bump for Central Washington and earned his first win of the season throwing 5.2 innings scattering five hits while striking out six batters and surrendering just one run.

Game one:

Both teams combined to collect 24 hits in the opener with NNU taking a slight 13-11 advantage on the board.

CWU starting pitcher Stuart Fewel (Portland, OR, Wilson) gave up 11 of those hits in 6.2 innings of work, allowing six runs to cross home place, while striking out five batters to fall to 1-2 on the season.

A host of Wildcat batters recorded two hits in game one as Bielec and ETHAN STERKEL were both 2-for-4 in the game, with Bielec driving in two runs.  Baumgartner and Welch each batted 2-for-5 and Justen Weigel (Naches, WA, Naches Valley) was 2-for-3 with a run scored.

Central Washington scored single runs in the first, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth innings, but were unable to rally and catch NNU who scored five runs between the seventh and eighth innings to win game one 8-6.

Central Washington will next host Whitworth University next Wednesday, Mar. 12 at 2 p.m. at the CWU Baseball Field.