Northern Pacific Conference (baseball)
# Northern Pacific Conference (baseball)

The Northern Pacific Conference (Nor-Pac) was formed for baseball for the 1975 season and comprised the NCAA programs in the Northwest not in the Pacific-8 Conference. The Big Sky Conference had dropped sponsorship of the sport after the 1974 season, and its three remaining baseball programs (Gonzaga, Idaho, Boise State) joined Portland State, Portland, Seattle U., and Puget Sound. An eighth team, Eastern Washington, was added after the 1979 season.

Idaho and Boise State dropped varsity baseball after the 1980 season, as did Seattle U., and the five-team Nor-Pac played a seventh and final season in 1981. Puget Sound dropped its program and the remaining four (GU, EWU, PSU, UP) joined the Northern division of the Pac-10 (as affiliate members, baseball only) for 1982; Oregon also discontinued baseball after 1981, which had left just three teams (Washington, Washington State, and Oregon State). In the Pac-10, the champion of the seven-team Northern division met the runner-up of the stronger six-team Southern division in a best-of-three series for the conference's second berth in the NCAA tournament.

Eastern Washington dropped baseball in 1990, and Portland State eight years later; after 1995, Gonzaga and Portland moved their baseball to the West Coast Conference (WCC), where their other sports were. Baseball returned at Oregon in 2009, Seattle U. in 2010, and briefly at Boise State for a pandemic-shortened 2020 season before being eliminated a second time due to a budget reduction..

## Champions

    YearChampionRunner-upMembersNotes 1975Puget SoundGonzaga7 1976GonzagaBoise State7 1977Portland StateGonzaga7 1978GonzagaPortland State7 1979PortlandPortland State7 1980GonzagaPortland8 1981Gonzaga (4)E. Washington5
