SPOKANE, Wash. - Pacific Lutheran closed to the doorstep of its first conference baseball crown in more than 50 years by breaking away late for a 14-3 win over Whitworth in a Northwest Conference contest today at Merkel Field.

Tampien drove in two runs and scored one

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The visiting Lutes scored 13 of their runs over the final three innings to improve to 29-7 overall and 18-3 in the NWC. Whitworth fell to 13-21 and 9-12.

PLU's Brett Brunner and the Pirates' Ryan Snell were locked in a tight pitchers' dual through six innings as the Lutes led 1-0. The Lutes scored their first run on back to back doubles by Brandon Sales and Jared Simon in the third inning. Snell finally gave up two more in the seventh on an RBI single by Tyler Green and a run-scoring double from Justin Whitehall for a 3-0 advantage.

The Lutes scored three more against the Pirate bullpen in the eighth, two of which came home on Ryan Thorne's RBI double.

Trailing 6-0, Whitworth finally broke through against Brunner in the bottom of the eighth. With two outs, Joel Tampien doubled home two runs and J.J. Jones doubled home Tampien to pull the Bucs within 6-3 heading to the ninth inning.

But then the flood games opened. The Lutes put the game away with eight runs against three pitchers. Nearly all of the runs were unearned after an error at third base allowed the inning to continue. PLU pounced on the opportunity when Jordan Post drove home two with a double to right. After a walk and hit batter, Logan Andrews deposited a grand slam over the right field wall for the final runs of the game.

Sales had three hits to lead PLU, while Thorne, Whitehall, and Simon each had a pair. Andrews drove in four runs. Kyle Richardson and Jones each had a pair of hits for the Pirates.

Coming up: Depending on the outcome of the George Fox-Lewis & Clark series this weekend, PLU need to only win one of three games against cross-town rival Puget Sound next weekend to clinch the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA Division III tournament. PLU is on track for its first conference title since 1954, when the Lutes were members of the Evergreen Conference (which no longer exists).

Whitworth will travel to Linfield to close Northwest Conference play against the Wildcats. Linfield played Whitman this weekend and is 18-14 overall and 13-7 in the NWC. The Pirates took two of three from the Wildcats last season in McMinnville.