This weekend, the Wildcat baseball team has a chance to do something they’ve never done before—win a regular-season GNAC Championship.

If Central can win the regular-season title, it will host the conference tournament on May 12 and 13.

“If we go out and play good baseball, other teams are gonna have to step up and rise up to beat us,” said head coach Desi Storey.

Since the GNAC’s inception during the 2001-2002 school year, the Western Oregon University Wolves (26-20 overall, 21-15 GNAC) have dominated the conference. They’ve won the regular season title every year with the exception of last season.

Even though they were dethroned as regular season champs last year, the Wolves came into this season voted as the favorite to win the GNAC in the preseason polls. Central, on the other hand, was picked to finish fourth.

The Wildcats (26-20, 22-14) enter the weekend one-game ahead of Western Oregon and need only a split of the season’s final series to claim a conference championship.

“[This is a] big, important weekend just like last weekend,” said senior outfielder Darren Honeysett. “We have a chance to win first place, get regionally ranked and knock off one of our biggest rivals.”

That accomplishment will be easier said than done. Western Oregon swept Central in a four-game series in Ellensburg in early April, outscoring the Wildcats 30-14.

“I think for our guys, it’s an understanding that it’s not so much that they took four from us, [it’s that] we didn’t play that well,” Storey said.

Since that series, the Wildcats have gone 12-6 in GNAC play. That push can be attributed to the continued success of the top-ranked hitting offense in the conference and help from a couple guys the team didn’t have available last season.

Sophomore pitcher Mackenzie Gaul is leading the conference with a 2.14 ERA in 54.2 innings pitched and has gone 3-0 since the last time Central played Western Oregon.

Gaul is ready to step up to the challenge of facing the conference’s top pitching staff.

“I love it,” Gaul said. “I love having the game on the line. I’ll take it. I’ll take the ball every time.”

To go along with Gaul, senior pitcher/infielder Jake Levin has done a little bit of everything for the Wildcats. He’s leading the team with six home runs and is tied with Honeysett for the team lead with 29 RBI. He also has four wins in 12 appearances on the mound with two complete games.

Levin is the only player in the GNAC with 100 or more at-bats and 50 or more innings pitched this season.

“This is the first time I’ve ever started as a pitcher. I think I’ve probably got as many innings on the mound [this season] as I have my whole life,” Levin said. “But whatever I can do for the team every game. Whether it’s on the mound or at the plate, I’m just out there competing no matter what.”

The matchup will be a true battle of strength versus strength. Central comes into the series leading the GNAC with .314 team batting average and is second in the conference with a 4.69 team ERA.

The Wolves enter the weekend leading the conference with a 3.78 team ERA and are second with a .294 team batting average.

“We don’t need to do anything special,” Storey said. “We just need to play good baseball and not give them extra opportunities.”

Storey plans to go with Gaul, Levin, senior Mitch Yada and junior Justin Adams as his starting pitchers for the series.

Western Oregon will likely counter with Brady Miller, Garrett Alvarez, Darrien Moran and Gary Steindorf. Miller, Alvarez and Moran have three of the top-six ERAs in the conference.

“They’ve got a good staff, don’t get me wrong. Those guys compete,” Storey said. “From our standpoint, we’re the best offensive team in the league. Our guys have done a pretty good job rising to the challenge of whoever’s throwing.”

With the teams pretty evenly matched between pitching and offense, defense may be what this series comes down to.

In the last series, Central committed 10 errors to Western Oregon’s six. The Wolves lead the GNAC in fielding percentage, and the Wildcats are in fifth.

Storey said he told his guys to just focus on eliminating the dumb mistakes.

A Central regular-season championship would give the school its second regular-season sports title this season.

“I think it’d be pretty cool. Obviously Coach Larabee and his staff and the girls have done a great job,” Storey said. “I give them a bad time because I told them we’ve spent all spring trying to keep up with them because they’ve done a pretty good job.”