Wolves Split with Saints, Streak Ends at 17

Western Oregon’s regular season is over, playoff news is next.

The Saints won the first game, losing later to WOU Photo Courtesy: stmartin.edu

MONMOUTH - Western Oregon saw its 17-game win streak come to an end, but then bounced back to end the regular season with a victory during a baseball doubleheader at home against Saint Martin`s on Sunday.

The Saints won the first game 4-3, while the Wolves took the nightcap, 16-10. WOU goes to 38-14 on the year and ends Great Northwest Athletic Conference play with a 20-4 mark. Saint Martin`s finishes the year at 15-28 overall and 7-12 in GNAC action.

The first game was played in steady drizzle. Saint Martin`s scored a run each in the first three innings of play and held a 3-1 lead until the Wolves tied the game in the bottom of the seventh. Two sacrifice flies plated two runs for WOU, but SMU answered with a run of its own in the eighth when Donald Bradetich singled home Richard O`Neill, who had led off the inning with a base hit.

In the ninth inning, the Wolves loaded the bases, but reliever Adam Siler got the final out with a 3-2 strikeout to end the contest.

Saint Martin`s had 10 hits in the game, including three by Ryan Brilhante. Bradetich had two base knocks and drove in two runs. Tip Wonhoff allowed only five hits in seven innings of work to get the win, while Siler allowed just one hit in two innings to get his fifth save of the year. Whitney Wilson had two of WOU`s six hits.

In the second game, Western Oregon pounded out 16 hits and scored 16 times to edge the Saints in the high-scoring contest. The Wolves scored five runs in the second, five runs in the fourth and six runs in the sixth inning. Evan Krause and Coubi Jiles had three hits each and Jiles drove in three runs with a double and a triple. Kevin Corrigan, Brent Mertens and Jason Pohl had two hits each, and Matt Skundrick hit his 11th home run of the season.

Vince Maughan led the Saints with three hits and three RBI, while O`Neill added a pair of base hits.

Western Oregon will now sit back and wait for news from the NCAA Division II selection committee, which will likely take another week to come. Both the California Collegiate Athletic Association and the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference have conference tournaments this coming weekend, so the final poll won`t come out until May 14th or 15th.

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