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NAMPA, Idaho – It turned out to be a disappointing Friday for the Crusaders – in triple.

The Northwest Nazarene softball team battled hard in the day's opener, tying the game 3-3 in the fourth inning before visiting Western Oregon erupted for a 12-3 win in five innings in a Great Northwest Athletic Conference softball tripleheader at Halle Field on the NNU campus.

That set the tone for the day, as the Crusaders battled hard in the day's second game before falling 5-2, then tried to erase an early deficit in a rare third game of the day, only to fall 15-5 in five innings.

In the opener, Whitney Carlton was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded and one out, tying the game, 3-3 in the bottom of the fourth.

Looking to break the game open, instead  the Crusaders (8-20 overall, 2-8 GNAC) were stymied as the Wolves (21-11, 12-1) threw out a runner at home then got a strikeout to end the fourth-inning threat.

Riding the momentum of escaping that jam, Western Oregon rallied for nine runs in the top of the fifth, helped by a trio of NNU errors, to ice the first win of the tripleheader.

Undaunted by seeing game one get away, NNU jumped in front 1-0 in the bottom of the first of game two as Justine Callen scored on a throwing error.

WOU rallied for three in the third to take the lead, then tacked on two more runs in the fifth inning, but the Crusaders continued to battle.

Alyssa Nitschelm's RBI fielder's choice closed the gap to 5-2 in the bottom of the fifth, but the Wolves held off NNU, stranding five Crusader baserunners in the final three frames to preserve the game two victory.

In the third game of the afternoon, the Wolves tried to put it away early with a seven-run rally in the top of the first.

The Crusaders hung tough, though, getting a Shelby Johnson RBI groundout and a two-run single from Carlton to make it 7-3 after one inning.

A Gatalina Schuster RBI groundout in the second trimmed the margin to 7-4 before the Wolves pulled away to complete the three-game sweep with three in the third and five runs in the fifth.

Nitschelm had a pair of hits in each the first and third game and added an RBI in the second contest, while Justine Callen had two hits and an RBI in the opener and Carlton had a hit and two RBIs in the nightcap for NNU, which hosts Western Oregon on Saturday at noon in the fourth and final game of the teams' weekend series.