PacWest Tournament Champs

Westmont baseball (41-12) defeated the Sharks of Hawai’i Pacific (32-22) 5-3 to win the PacWest Tournament Championship – in its first year of eligibility – on May 9 in Fresno. The tournament championship came eight days after the Warriors clinched the PacWest Regular Season Championship, the first PacWest regular season championship team won by a Westmont team.

With the win, the Warriors receive the conference’s automatic qualifier berth in the NCAA DII National Tournament, featuring 56 teams. Westmont will host an NCAA Division II West Regional with the first game on Thursday, May 15.

“I am super happy for the players, but also for all the athletics staff, for the faculty, President Beebe, and everyone who supports our athletes to be their best,” said Westmont’s first-year head coach Paul Svagdis. “To be able to host in our first season of postseason eligibility is a tremendous honor for all of them. The athletic department did the hard work to get us eligible.

“Knowing going into this year that we were NCAA eligible, these guys put it on their shoulders to say, ‘We are going to go make this tournament.’”

Westmont (41-12) will play host to the Otters of Cal State Monterey Bay (36-16) and Gators of San Francisco State (33-21) beginning on Thursday. The Warriors are the number two seed in the West, while the Otters are seeded third and the Gators are the sixth seed. A double-elimination format will be used in the three-team tournament.

The first pitch of the regional at Westmont will be at 11 am on Thursday when the Otters and Gators take the field. The Warriors will play the loser of that contest in a game scheduled to start at 2 pm.