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NAMPA, Idaho — This finish was as dramatic as they come, and it almost happened twice.

On senior weekend it was only fitting that senior Morgan Thome got to be the hero, belting a pinch-hit walk-off homer to lift the Northwest Nazarene softball team to a 6-5 win over Western Oregon at Halle Field on the NNU campus on Friday.

Then Thome nearly got the chance to do it again, standing on deck when a seventh-inning rally just came up short as the Crusaders split the Great Northwest Athletic Conference twinbill, falling 5-3 in the nightcap to the Wolves.

"I'm real pleased with the effort," NNU head softball coach Rich Wagner said. "You can't complain about at the end of games and you're doing your best to win both games."

The opening win kicked off a big senior weekend for NNU, which will celebrate "Senior Day" on Saturday when it hosts the Wolves in another doubleheader starting at noon at Halle Field.

Of course, the weekend is bigger than just a senior send-off as the Crusaders (15-25 overall, 9-13 GNAC) find themselves in the midst of the postseason race, trying to catch fourth-place Western Oregon for the final spot in the four-team GNAC playoffs.

So there definitely was plenty of fight in NNU, right down to the final pitch.

In the opener, a Lisa Sylvester two-run single to left center capped a three-run rally that gave the Crusaders a brief 3-2 lead after three innings.

The Wolves (23-20, 13-9) responded with a three-run answer in their next at-bat, though, and it looked like the final might end up 5-3 in favor of the visitors as a bottom of the seventh rally was almost silenced with a line-out double play.

Sylvester reignited the rally with one swing, though, blasting a solo homer to left, bringing the tying run to the plate for NNU.

Abigail Otto represented that tying run and she did her part as she singled to center, extending the two-out rally.

Then Wagner went to his bench, calling on Thome who stepped to the plate and delivered her first home run as a Crusader, a two-run shot to left-center to win the ballgame.

"All the drama — and it was tons of fun with Morgan Thome hitting a walk-off home run," Wagner said. "It doesn't get better than that."

It almost did, though, as the Crusaders had chances but couldn't push a run across through the first six innings in the nightcap, and went to the bottom of the seventh down 5-0.
 

Down to their final out once again, Cassidy Fifield launched a two-run shot to left that kick-started the comeback.

A fielding error then allowed Otto to score, and an Ali Schauer single to right brought the winning run to the plate and had Thome standing on deck with two on and two outs.

But before Thome got her chance at another heroic hit, the Wolves got a strikeout to hold on for a heart-racing victory and split of the day.

"Second game I thought the same thing was going to happen, they just have the fight," Wagner said of his team, adding, "we just need to clean it up a little bit, clean it up earlier in the game."

As one pitch decided the game early on, a grand slam by Mercedes Green for the Wolves, who took the 5-0 lead on that one swing.

Fifield and Schauer led the NNU offense in the nightcap, each collecting a pair of hits, while Orr and Sylvester each were 4-for-8 in the doubleheader for the Crusaders.

Brooke Bonsen (9-10) struck out nine Wolves batters to earn the win in the opener for NNU.