NAMPA, Idaho – Adam Paulson knew he had to be the stopper Saturday.

After the Northwest Nazarene baseball team had dropped the first two games of its four-game series against Montana State Billings, the last thing the Nighthawks wanted was to open Saturday with another loss.

Paulson did his job, striking out eight in 5 1/3 innings as the Nighthawks won Saturday's Great Northwest Athletic Conference opener 7-4 before falling 7-5 in the nightcap.

"If you drop that third game after dropping the first two, it's hard to get up for Game 4 because you have already lost the series," Paulson said. "You win that one and it at least gives us a shot to win the series and that is always big."

The Nighthawks (8-18 overall, 6-10 GNAC) appeared poised to sweep Saturday, but the Yellowjackets scored three times in the seventh to steal the win in the nightcap.

In the opener, Paulson relied on his fastball early and his slider late. He wasn't perfect -- walking five and allowing three runs on three hits – but it was still the kind of start the Nighthawks have been lacking recently.

Staked to a 4-0 lead after the first inning, he and three relievers made it stand up. Ryan Mets and Jalen Fuhriman each recorded one out and then Blake McFadden pitched three perfect innings to earn his first save.

"I think just after the last couple of weekends where didn't play as well maybe as we wanted to … I think this gives us momentum," Paulson said. "MSUB is a really good team. Give them a lot of credit they hit the ball well and they throw pretty well, but we showed we can take two games from a team like that on any given day."

The Nighthawks nearly did that as Cooper Webster was sharp in his second consecutive start, lasting into the seventh. He allowed five runs, four earned, on eight hits with one walk and seven strikeouts. That follows his shutout in a 1-0 win against Concordia last weekend.

He started the seventh, allowing a bloop single to right field. Zach Penrod then came on and gave up a wild pitch and a run-scoring double to tie the game. Jesse Hilyard then gave up another double, before McFadden came on and eventually got out of trouble.

"I'm most proud of this team today because they fought," NNU coach Rocke Musgraves said. "Jesse Hilyard coming into that game tired and beat up, comes out and competes. That is all we can ask these guys is to compete. They are starting to give us that competitive spirit."

The Nighthawks offense was once again sharp.

In the opener, Kyle Redford crushed a two-run home run to left. He finished 2-for-3 with two runs and two RBIs, while Parker Price was 3-for-5 with a double and an RBI, Justin Folz was 2-for-4 and Bennett Tabaracci had a double.

"I was just sitting fastball all weekend until they proved they could throw the deuce (curve)," Redford said. "I just felt good up there."

In the nightcap, Redford was 1-for-2 with an RBI, Folz drove in a run, Ben Johnson had a two-run double and Ryan Connor had a big run-scoring single to briefly give the Nighthawks the lead after six innings.

"We take positives because we learned so many things today," Musgraves said. "We're trying to make sure that the scoreboard does not dictate how much we learn. The scoreboard does not dictate our emotions. The scoreboard just tells us what our strategy is.

"I think we learned a lot from this weekend."

The Nighthawks hit the road to play at Western Oregon with doubleheaders Friday and Saturday.