For an avid college sports fan in this area, anything that is Northwest Missouri State vs. Missouri Western on the schedule is like opening up presents on Christmas morning.

On Wednesday night, the miserable spring weather for their baseball doubleheader was just like Christmas, minus the glistening snow.

If it were just a few degrees colder, we would have seen the white stuff glistening in the lights of Phil Welch Stadium. Instead, it was a miserable, bone-chilling rain, driven by a wind that whistled through the leaky, rickety press box atop the stadium and making me lose all feeling in my feet and hands. (Insert wailing violin music here.)

But it could be worse, and it probably will be this weekend. We’re supposed to get some of that white stuff by the weekend when these teams try to squeeze in more MIAA games against other opponents.

And just like Christmas morning, the season series between these two teams was over too soon. Four games in just nine days. Clean up the mess, eat a big meal and take a nap.

But this season’s baseball series between the two schools, which they split evenly, provided a few highlights that might satisfy us until the next Northwest-Western sports “holiday.”

On Wednesday night it was Northwest’s Brett Harvel who stole the soggy spotlight, pitching a complete seven-inning game in the opener. His seven-strikeout performance was a far cry from his outing just three days earlier against Missouri Southern, when he got rocked and was yanked by coach Darin Loe after just two-thirds of an inning.

This time, however, he was sharp, walking only two batters the entire game and shutting out the Griffons despite scattering seven hits.

“He did an awesome job,” Western coach Buzz Verduzco said, giving him credit for his team’s demise.

To be fair, Harvel was good and the Griffons were far from it in the first game, committing four errors and coming out flat.

“We spent four to six hours getting the field ready to where we could play — and we looked like it,” Verduzco said.

In the second game on Wednesday night it was Northwest’s turn to unravel, with a two-run error in the eighth inning providing the difference in a 4-2 Western victory.

Still, Loe considered the doubleheader two of the better games his team has played this season, as the Bearcats struggle to remain in contention for a berth in the MIAA Tournament, scheduled for May 9 to 11 at CommunityAmerica Ballpark in Kansas City, Kan. The top four teams in the conference advance to that postseason event. Northwest is tied for fourth place, and Western is a game back in sixth.

Western and Northwest split their April 1 doubleheader in Maryville, Mo., as well.

Instead of Harvel grabbing the pitching headlines, it was Western’s Chris Jackson who didn’t walk a single batter in his own seven-inning, complete-game victory, a 5-3 decision in the first game.

As good as Harvel and Jackson were in their outings, neither could match the accomplishment of Northwest’s Danny Malone, who recorded one of the strangest pitching lines ever in the April 1 nightcap.

Malone got the hook in the fifth inning with a no-hitter intact. The only problem was that he lost his control. The Griffons couldn’t hit him, but he sure could hit them — and walk them. He left the game, embarrassed but to loud and appreciative applause, having hit two batters with pitches and issuing four straight walks.

Four very nice and very different baseball gifts have been opened. Now we just need to find out over the next four weeks whether these two teams can be good enough to find a playoff present under their baseball tree.