BILLINGS, Mont. --- The Western Oregon baseball team forced a winner-take-all title game for the GNAC Championships crown after a game one win 4-3 over Northwest Nazarene Saturday, but fell in the second game to the Nighthawks 5-1 at Dehler Park to come up a win short of claiming its third consecutive GNAC Championships title and an automatic bid to its fourth-straight NCAA Regional.

The Wolves will now wait to see if they make the NCAA postseason and the six-team NCAA West Regional when the brackets are released 7:30 p.m. (PT) Sunday at NCAA.com. WOU entered the week ranked eighth in the region in the latest NCAA Regional Rankings.

As for Saturday, the Wolves (29-21) jumped on NNU (36-13-1) in the first inning of game one on an Owen Bischoff RBI single. The Nighthawks took the lead in the fourth inning with a pair of runs before Tyler Mohler came up big for WOU in the bottom half of the inning - blasting a three-run homer to right center to give WOU a 4-2 advantage.

NNU scratched a run across in the ninth, but sophomore Devin Bell finished the game for the Wolves to pick up the win - going the final five innings and giving up one run on three htis with four strikeouts and two walks. Freshman Ayden Holker was solid in the start, going four innings and giving up two runs on three hits with five strikeouts and one walk.

John Oleson was the only WOU player with multiple hits, going 2-for-3 with a run.

In the winner-take-all contest, WOU - which was without GNAC Co-Pitcher of the Year Arturo Alvarez due to injury - fell behind 1-0 in the second before NNU scored two more in the fourht, another in the fifth and one more in the seventh before a Bischoff RBI single in the eighth made it 5-1.

Bischoff continued his hot hitting in the tournament, going 3-for-4 in the second game with an RBI. For the tournament, Bischoff went 9-for-15 (.600) with a homer, two doubles, three RBI, two runs and two stolen bases in four games. Oleson had another two hit game for the Wolves in game two, going 2-for-4.