BILLINGS, Mont. --- The Western Oregon baseball team capped the regular season with 9-6 and 10-8 wins over Montana State Billings on Friday at Dehler Park.

The Wolves finish the regular season 27-19 overall and 21-11 in GNAC play - good for second place and the Wolves' 14th-straight 20-win conference season that wasn't shortened by the pandemic (2020 and 2021). WOU has won 20-plus games in conference play 18 times since the GNAC began in 2002 (the rest of the conference combined has 17).

WOU will be the No. 2 seed in the GNAC Championships and will take on third-seed Central Washington 11 a.m. (PT) Thursday right back in Billings before taking on top-seed Northwest Nazarene at 6 p.m. (PT) later in the day.

As for Friday's contests, the Wolves in game one jumped out to an 8-2 lead after its half of the seventh and held off the Yellowjackets (17-33, 11-21) for the 9-6 win. Curran Mitzel paced the Wolves at the plate, going 4-for-6 with a home run and three RBI. Collin Irwin had a pair of RBI while Owen Bischoff, John Oleson and Emiliano Alarcon had two hits apiece (Oleson's were a double and triple). Bryce Bond gets the win, going 1.1 innings and retiring all four batters he faced while Devin Bell picked up his fourth save.

In the second game, WOU led 8-4 before MSUB scored four runs in the bottom of the sixth to tie it up. The game went to extras and WOU took the lead on a passed ball that allowed AJ Cortese to score before Alarcon singled to left to drive in Trey Nelson to add insurance.

Tyler Mohler went 3-for-4 for WOU with two RBI and a run. Cortese went 2-for-4 with a double, two RBI and two runs, Nelson finished 2-for-2 with a double and run, Justyn Herzog went 2-for-4 with a run and RBI and Zach Valdez went 2-for-5 with a run.

Chris Jones got the win in relief, going two innings and didn't give up a run with three strikeouts. Kadyn Shelton pitched a scoreless eighth to pick up his first save.