Point Loma Nazarene’s baseball team only needed to win one of two games to finish the season and repeat as PacWest champions.
The No. 20 Sea Lions (34-12, 22-8 PacWest), though, won both against Academy of Art, and earned the top seed in the first-ever PacWest Championships, set to begin Wednesday in Fresno.
PLNU, runner up in the NCAA Division II baseball championship last year, will play in the first game of the double-elimination tournament at noon against the fourth seed, Holy Names, out of Oakland.
After a 10-3 victory clinched the conference title, the team followed up with a 5-2 win to close out the regular season on an eight-game winning streak.
“In means everything,” head coach Justin James said of the PacWest title. “When I took over the job, winning the conference was one of the main priorities I wanted to bring to The Point.”
It wasn’t smooth sailing all year though for the preseason PacWest favorites.
The Sea Lions had their conference-opening series with Fresno Pacific rained out, then dropped three out of four games at Hawaii Hilo to start 1-3 in PacWest play.
The team responded by winning 21 of its remaining 26 conference games, despite playing 10 games in nine days to finish the regular season.
The Sea Lion pitching staff helped PLNU close it out strong, with a streak of five shutouts and 41.2 scoreless innings until Saturday.
“Some of these guys hadn’t pitched a ton of innings before, so it was just a matter of getting the experience,” James said. “They’re fully bought-in now and it’s been fun to watch.
The tournament continues through Friday.