PARKLAND – Derrick Mahlum fell one out shy of his first career shutout and the Pacific Lutheran baseball team closed out the 2014 regular season with an 8-2 Northwest Conference win over Pacific on a rainy Sunday afternoon at PLU Field.

Pacific Lutheran honored seniors Alec Beal and Nicholas Hall prior to the game, as the two played their final game in a PLU uniform in front of their home fans. The Lutes also honored Pacific coach Greg Bradley, who is retiring after 19 years at the helm of the Boxer program. PLU improved to 25-14 overall and clinched at least a share of second place in the NWC with a 16-8 record. Pacific fell to 11-24 overall and 4-20 in conference play.

Mahlum allowed two runs on six hits with four walks and eight strikeouts in 8.2 innings. He came in to pitch the ninth with an 8-0 lead and had two outs with two runners on before Matt Hopp's RBI single ended the shutout bid. The freshman pitcher came out of the game after that, having thrown 128 pitches in picking up his team-high seventh win of the season. Cory Nelson picked up the final out of the game. Kyle Treadway took the loss for Pacific, allowing three earned runs on eight hits with five walks in 5.1 innings.

Beal had one of his best days at the plate in his final home game, tallying three singles and driving in three runs for the Lutes. Shawn Abe also had three hits and added three runs scored, while Curtis Wildung walked twice, drove in one run on a sacrifice fly and cranked a two-run home run over the right field fence in the bottom of the eighth. Kory Vanderstaay walked three times and added a base hit and an RBI.

The Lutes got on the board with three unearned runs in the bottom of the second. Abe hit a one-out single through the left side, Ben Welch hit an infield single and Tyler Thompson reached on a fielders' choice that saw all three players reach safely following an error. Wildung's sacrifice fly made it 1-0, and following Vanderstaay's walk to load the bases Beal dropped a two-RBI single into left field.

PLU added another run in the fourth. Both Wildung and Vanderstaay walked to put two on with two outs, and Beal singled to right center to score Wildung from second. Two more came in during the bottom of the sixth. Abe and Thompson singled and Wildung walked to load the bases with one out. A single by Vanderstaay stretched the Lutes' lead to 6-0. They added their final two runs on Wildung's homer in the eighth, and Pacific finally broke through for two runs in the top of the ninth.

The game included a pair of rain delays, as a downpour pushed back the start of the contest about 10 minutes and a later delay took about 15 minutes.