Bushnell University baseball wins conference tourney and earns NAIA tournament berth

Just two years removed from fielding a baseball team for the first time in over 50 years, the Bushnell Beacons are conference champions.

In their third season since restarting their program, the Beacons (29-24, 12-12 CCC) won the Cascade Collegiate Conference tournament championship against Lewis-Clark State, 8-2, to earn an automatic berth into the NAIA tournament, beginning next week.

The Beacons earned a No. 4 seed in the Lawrenceville, Georgia, bracket and will play No. 5 Louisiana Christian May 13 at host Georgia Gwinnett College. If they win, they will advance to play No. 1 seed Georgia Gwinnett that same day.

The Beacons defeated the Warriors (37-11, 21-3 CCC), the host of the CCC tournament and the fifth-ranked team in the NAIA, twice over the tournament, defeating them in the opening round 13-5, before defeating British Columbia on May 5, 10-4, and then taking down the Warriors again, 8-2.

Outfielder Jordan Wilson hit a grand slam for the Beacons in the seventh inning of the tournament-clinching win that gave them a lead they would never relinquish.

Eugene-area local products Dylan Martin (Marist), Cade Crist (Thurston), Dylan Carson (Churchill), CJ Smith (Churchill) and Blake Stavros (Willamette) are all featured on the roster. Crist hit a double that knocked in two runs to make it 8-2 in the final game, and Stavros pitched a scoreless inning and two thirds in relief.

Alec Dietz covers University of Oregon football, volleyball, women’s basketball and baseball for The Register-Guard. You may reach him at adietz@registerguard.com and you can follow him on X @AlecDietz.

This article originally appeared on Register-Guard: Bushnell University baseball earns NAIA tournament berth