Box Score

NAMPA, Idaho — This was the kind of battle Crusader coach Rocke Musgraves wanted to see from his entire team, though not the outcome.

Musgraves' Northwest Nazarene baseball team went toe-to-toe with perennial powerhouse Lewis-Clark State, trading big blows — and the lead — with the Warriors before eventually falling 17-14 in nonconference action Tuesday at Elmore Vail Field on the NNU campus.

"Sounds crazy, but after giving up 17 runs I felt like we threw more competitive pitches today, which makes me happy," NNU's skipper said, as 17 walks and four hit batters on Monday allowed LCSC to win an 18-10 slugfest.

"I thought about 90 percent of our at-bats we're very competitive. We seem to be getting our timing down going into a very important part of our conference season," Musgraves added.

That being the heart of the Great Northwest Athletic Conference race, as NNU now heads to Montana State Billings for doubleheaders on Friday and Saturday, then travels to GNAC front-runner Western Oregon for four more games on March 31 and April 1.

So the mid-week, non-league contests against the 16-time NAIA National Champion Warriors definitely tested NNU on both sides of the ball, and right from the start.

LCSC jumped up 2-0 in the top of the first inning with a two-run Seaver Whalen home run, but NNU (10-12 overall, 8-4 GNAC) answered as Billy King blasted his fourth home run in four games, a solo shot that cut the difference in half after one frame.

The Warriors (15-8) tried to break the game open, and appeared to do some with six runs in the top of the second inning, but the Crusaders were unfazed.

Freshman Braden Hirsch ignited the NNU comeback with an RBI double to right-center, then the Crusaders tacked on a run on a King RBI base on balls, and two more on a Brett Nielsen single to center.

Another RBI base-on-balls, to Jarod Gonzales, made it an 8-6 ballgame before Tim Jones stepped up with two outs and the bases loaded and quickly put NNU on top, clearing the sacks with a double for a 9-8 Crusader edge.

The see-saw game went back in the Warriors favor in the third, though, as the No. 8-ranked team in the NAIA plated four runs to take the lead for good.

"I think that our pitching staff is learning that they need to be able to go to a second and a third pitch also for a strike in a lot of different situations," Musgraves said, as NNU pitchers limited walks and hit batters, but at times couldn't shut down LCSC in the slugfest. "When you play a team like LC State, you've got to be able to attack hitters as well as pitch backwards to the middle of their lineup and I thought we did a better job of that today."

It just turned out that the Warriors collected a few more big base hits, as LCSC stretched the lead to 15-9 in the top of the sixth inning before a determined Crusader team again rallied.

And it was Jones who once again provided a clutch two-out base knock, a two-run double that ignite another charge before he scored on a Hirsch RBI single.

LCSC managed to pad its narrow lead with a two-run homer in the top of the seventh, and it stayed a 17-12 ballgame until the bottom of the ninth when Brett Nielsen launched a two-run home run over the wall in left-center with two outs.

But that's where NNU's comeback came to a halt in the slugfest, as the Warriors held on to sweep the two-game series.

Nielsen, Kyle Redford and Jones all collected three hits for NNU in the win, with Jones driving in five runs and Nielsen four more for a Crusader offense that in its last six games has been on a tear.

The Crusaders have scored 55 runs and hit 15 home runs in their last six games.