MONMOUTH, Ore. (May 6) – The Central Washington University baseball team lost both of its Friday matchups with Western Oregon University and now need to win its final two games of the regular season to earn a berth in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference Tournament.
The Wildcats (26-22, 22-16 GNAC) came into the day in first place in the GNAC standings, but after losses of 8-16 and 7-10, they now sit in fourth place behind WOU (28-20, 22-15 GNAC) who they play twice tomorrow.
Northwest Nazarene and Montana State Billings have both secured playoff spots as both schools swept their four-game series against Concordia and Saint Martin's, respectively.
After falling behind 10-0 early in game one, the Wildcats rallied to put up four runs in the fourth inning.
Darren Honeysett got the scoring started advancing from third on a wild pitch, and
Kyle Stahl and
Benjamin Dunbar finished off the inning with a pair of singles, with Dunbar's hit scoring
Dylan Freyre and Stahl.
Down 11-4 in the sixth inning, CWU again put up a four spot on singles by
Jonathan Dailey,
Ryan Atkinson and Honeysett to close the Wolves' lead to 11-8.
Western Oregon added to its lead in the bottom half of the inning scoring five runs on four hits, the last a three-run homerun by Trevor Podratz.
The Wildcats were outhit 23-9 and could not recover from the early deficit.
The tables looked to be turned in game two when the Wildcats scored all seven of their runs in the second inning to take a 7-0 lead. Central Washington pounded out six hits in the frame, including three doubles by
Justin Adams, Atkinson and Stahl.
Western Oregon started chipping away at the CWU advantage, scoring once in the second inning and three more times in the third. Things fell apart for the Wildcats in the fifth where the Wolves scored five times on four hits to take a 9-7 lead.
The Wolves added an insurance run in the sixth inning to help secure the game two victory and jump the Wildcats in the GNAC standings.
The Wildcats and Wolves faceoff again tomorrow, starting at Noon, in what will be the Wildcats most important two games of their 2016 season.
