GNAC Baseball: Western Oregon Splits GNAC Opener with Northwest Nazarene

Paul Fisher was the only WOU player with more than one hit.

Salem-News.com SPORTS

MONMOUTH - Coubi Jiles hit a three-run homer and drove in four runs to help Western Oregon to a 6-2 victory in the second game of a Great Northwest Athletic Conference baseball doubleheader, salvaging a split for the Wolves against Northwest Nazarene.

The Crusaders won the first game 6-3, and are now 15-14 overall and 4-2 in GNAC play.

The games were the first conference contests of the year for the Wolves, who are now 10-14 on the year and 1-1 in league play.

In the nightcap, NNU jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first inning on Eric Duke’s two-run double off of Wolves starter Mike Eisenhauer.

But the Crusaders wouldn’t get much else off the WOU sophomore the rest of the day, as the righthander went the complete-game seven innings, allowing just five hits, one walk and he fanned five.

Meanwhile Jiles blasted a three-run bomb in the third to give WOU a 4-2 margin.

He also had a sacrifice fly in the first and singled and scored in the fifth.

The Wolves added a pair of insurance runs in the fifth thanks to RBI base knocks by Brent Mertens and Tony Jones.

Jones had two hits in the game, as did Duke for NNU.

In the first game, Justin Mace went a complete-game nine innings on the mound to help lead the Crusaders to the win.

He scattered seven hits, including four doubles, walked only one and fanned five, including the final batter of the game.

The Crusaders broke open a 2-1 game in the sixth inning with four unearned runs.

The first three runners to cross the plate in the inning got on without the benefit of a hit, and then three straight run-scoring singles were delivered by Ryne Phillips, Zach Aaukhas and Tully Gallagher.

Gallagher had three hits in the game, while Nick Ray and Severo Rodriguez had two each.

Paul Fisher was the only WOU player with more than one hit.

NNU had 11 hits in the game, all singles

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