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LAS VEGAS – A strong start to the day turned sour for the Crusader softball team Saturday as Northwest Nazarene dropped all three of its games of the day at the Desert Stinger Classic.

Western New Mexico rallied to top the Crusaders (1-6 overall), 7-5, to start the day before Sonoma State scored a 15-4 victory in 5 innings and Cal State San Bernardino topped NNU 8-1 to conclude the day.

In the opener, things went very well for NNU as Lily Paschal had an RBI walk and Brianna Kinghorn's RBI single to center capped a five-run rally in the top of the second inning for the Crusaders.

Then things slowly turned sour as Western New Mexico (3-5) plated three in the bottom of the fourth and tied the game in the fifth. A two-run rally in the bottom of the sixth finished off the comeback win.

Gatalina Schuster, Kiahna Brown and Kinghorn each had a pair of hits in NNU's first contest of the day.

The momentum of the opening game carried over against Sonoma State, which jumped up 12-0 and held on for the five-inning win.

NNU began building its own momentum as Whitney Carlton and Ali Schauer hit solo home runs and Schuster and Ashley Pesek added an RBI single each in a four-run rally for the Crusaders in the loss.

Carlton and Schauer each had two hits in the second game of the day for NNU, which got an RBI triple in the seventh from Alyssa Nitschelm in the loss to Cal State San Bernardino to close out the tournament.