Last weekend Pittsburg State secured the first MIAA baseball regular-season championship in program history.

Now the Gorillas can focus on claiming the second postseason tournament title in school history.

The quest begins at 1 p.m. Thursday when the top-seeded Gorillas (40-9) play eighth-seeded Washburn or ninth-seeded Central Oklahoma in Edmond, Okla.

Pittsburg State, which won the MIAA Tournament in 1999, took two-of-three games from both the Ichabods and Bronchos during conference play. A 5-0 loss to close the regular season last Saturday at Washburn ended PSU’s 12-game winning streak.

Nothing changes for the Gorillas as they enter the postseason.

“The message is still the same,” coach Brock Buckingham said. “Each game that we play, we’re going to try to go 1-0. We’re not going to change anything.”

The Gorillas remain No. 1 in this week’s Central Region ranking. Rogers State, Central Missouri, Northwest Missouri and Missouri Southern are ranked 2 through 5, and Emporia State is No. 9. Tournament matchups on Thursday include Northwest Missouri vs. Central Missouri and Missouri Southern vs. Emporia State.

Preseason expectations were high for the Gorillas, and they proved to be valid as PSU won its first 17 games.

“We started 17-0; that’s when you realize hey, we might have chance to be pretty good,” Buckingham said. “And then when we beat Central Missouri here two out of three (games), that said to us we’re pretty good. We just have to go out and play.”