Box Score

CARSON, Calif. – A few bloops, a few bobbles and the Crusaders head home disappointed.

A nine-game, 10-day road trip ended with two bad innings spoiling Saturday's finale as the Northwest Nazarene baseball team fell 5-0 at Cal State Dominguez Hills.

The setback also spoiled the good feeling of a 7-3 win Friday night and left the Crusaders with a 1-8 overall record on their season-opening road trip to Hawaii and California.

"It is yet to be seen if this is a successful or unsuccessful weekend," NNU coach Rocke Musgraves said. "If we learn from it and get better than it's a success.

"We've identified a few baseball IQ things we've got to get better at," NNU's first-year head man added. "We're going to go back to work, and I think everybody on the team wants to do that."

The Toros (5-2) spoiled NNU's day quickly as a two-out single by Nick Wagner opened the scoring before Hayden Maurice's two-run single to center made it 3-0 in the bottom of the first.

A fielding error in the second then helped CSU Dominguez Hills add two more runs, and that proved to be more than enough for the Toros and their soft-throwing lefty, Jeffrey Gogue (1-0).

Gogue, who didn't top 77 miles per hour on the radar gun, kept the Crusader hitters off balance with curveballs and changeups, scattering four hits in eight-plus innings work to earn the win.

NNU battled right up to the final pitch, though, chasing Gogue in the top of the ninth when he hit Jeremy Richardson with a pitch.

From there, the Crusaders managed to load the bases against the Toros bullpen but, unfortunately, failed to drive any runs in in the rally.

Tate Glasgow, Sam Cook, Jake Ferdinand and Andrew Helmstadter each had a hit to lead the Crusader offense, while Andrew Groves (0-1), Noah Starr and Ryan Kuhn teamed up for a strong effort on the hill, allowing just three earned runs on seven base hits.

"On the good side, I thought we had effective pitching, which is always a good sign," Musgraves said. "Now we just have to learn to catch the ball behind them and score a few more runs."

The Crusaders return home to host Prairie Baseball Academy on Friday in an exhibition doubleheader at 1 p.m. before entertaining Hawaii Hilo in back-to-back nonconference doubleheaders at 3 p.m. on Feb. 24 and noon on Feb. 25.