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NAMPA, Idaho — Brianna Kinghorn awoke the Crusaders with a bang.

A three-run blast to left-center field to be exact, igniting Northwest Nazarene's offense for an 11-1 rout of Carroll College in 5 innings to split a pair of games Friday at Halle Field on the NNU campus in the College of Idaho/Northwest Nazarene Softball Classic.

"The bats came alive, we knew they would," NNU head softball coach Rich Wagner said. "We've been hitting really well, we have a good hitting team.

"Just timely hits," Wagner added of the win over the Saints, which followed a heartbreaking 2-0 setback to Concordia earlier in the day for the Crusaders. "We've been getting hits the whole year and it was just timely hits, we finally got them the second game."

Starting with Kinghorn's third home run of the season with one out and two on base.

That opened the floodgates for the Crusaders (2-7), who added another run in the top of the first — playing as the visiting team in the tournament against Carroll — and made it 5-0 with an Ali Schauer RBI single in the second.
 

The Saints (2-7) closed the gap a bit with a run in the bottom of the third before NNU erupted for six runs in the fourth to ice the victory.

Schauer, Kinghorn, Whitney Carlton, Lisa Sylvester, Morgan Thome and Kendra Day all drove in a run each in the rally.

Plenty of offense for Ashley Pesek (2-4) who earned the win, striking out three in five innings work in the circle.

The offensive eruption quickly erased the memory of a disappointing setback against the Cavaliers (11-5) earlier in the day.

Against Concordia, which will join the Great Northwest Athletic Conference next season, NNU played tough but saw a two-out, two-run rally capped by a fielding error make the difference.

Two runs scored for the Cavaliers on the miscue in the top of the sixth, and that was all either team could muster.
Pesek again gave the Crusaders an excellent performance in the circle, scattering four hits and striking out three in seven innings, but ended up the hard-luck loser.

Not that NNU didn't have chances to plate a few runs as the Crusaders pushed runners to second and third in the first, fifth and sixth innings, but couldn't plate a single one.

Still, the close battled with the Cavaliers — who started their day by knocking of future GNAC foe Montana State Billings, 11-10 — was a promising sign for NNU.

"We knew Concordia was going to be really good, they're comparable to a top three or four team in our conference right now," Wagner said, "so it was really nice to see us compete really well knowing were going to see the same type of competition next weekend at Western Oregon."

While Pesek led the way in the circle for NNU, Schauer was the lone Crusader with a hit in both contests, going 3-for-7 on the day.

Alyssa Nitschlem and Day each added a pair of hits against Carroll for the Crusader, who are back in action at 10 a.m. on Saturday morning, hosting Eastern Oregon before wrapping up the weekend against visiting British Columbia at 2 p.m.

Games the Crusaders are eager to play after Friday's late-afternoon victory.

"The girls are really excited to get back on the field," Wagner said.