Box Score

NAMPA, Idaho – This wasn't the performance coach Rocke Musgraves wanted to see from his team riding a wave of momentum.

Fresh off winning 3-of-4 games against Great Northwest Athletic Conference front-runner Western Oregon, the Northwest Nazarene baseball team took on nonconference foe Lewis-Clark State (Idaho) only to fall 11-2 on Tuesday at Elmore Vail Field on the NNU campus.

"We showed up flat tonight and before we knew it we were down," NNU's head baseball coach, Musgraves, said. "We are working on our focus right now so it will be interesting to work on that tomorrow (Wednesday) night and learn from this game."

Wednesday, the Crusaders (18-17, 7-9 GNAC) get the chance to even up the mid-week series with the Warriors (24-7, 10-2 NAIA West) when the teams meet once again at 6 p.m.

Tuesday night, the 13^th-ranked team in the NAIA came out swinging, plating two in the top of the second and another run on a solo homer by Seth Brown in the top of the fourth.

A four-run rally in the fifth put NNU in a hole it never dug out of, not that the Crusaders didn't try.

A bases loaded base-on-balls to Jesse Hilyard plated the Crusaders first run in the bottom of the fifth inning, but the lack of a clutch hit left the bases loaded.

NNU then got an RBI fielder's choice from Ben Circeo in the bottom of the sixth, trimming the difference to 7-2 before the Warriors iced the victory with three runs in the top of the seventh.

Tyler Davis, Tucker Campbell, Nick Strange and Circeo each had a hit to lead the NNU offense in the setback.