Box Score (Game 1)
Box Score (Game 2)

CEDAR HILL, Texas  — Southern Nazarene can finally take a deep breath and hopefully can get on the right side of a streak after the Crimson Storm scored its first win of the year with a 6-5 win over No. 24 Northwood.
 
SNU (1-5) held on for dear life and faced the winning run in scoring position in the bottom of the seventh, but got behind the staff of John Basnight and the final out by Nate Saquilon to record the win. Basnight (1-0) went all but one out away from a complete game, going six and two-thirds innings and allowed just three earned runs on six hits. He also struck out seven.
 
SNU struck first in the nightcap when Saquilon drilled a two-out double down the right field line to score Ryan Williams. The Knights took the lead in the bottom of the second, at 2-1, taking advantage of a pair of Storm errors. Southern Nazarene responded though in the top half of the third when Saquilon drew a bases-loaded walk to tie it at 2-2 before Ryan McIntosh singled to center to score James Tunnell and Williams.
 
The Knights cut it to 4-3 with a run in the third, but SNU drove two more runs across in the top of the fifth on a Josh Riley single down the left field line to score Williams and Jacob Inbody. Northwood added one in the fifth to make it 6-4 before heading into an intense seventh inning.
 
The Knights recorded two straight singles with one out before Basnight recorded a strikeout for the second out of the inning. Cutter Forman then drew a walk to load the bases before Saquilon took the hill. Saquilon walked the first batter he faced to put the tying run just 90 feet away and the game-winning run on second, but the junior transfer worked himself out of the jam and into his first save of the season.
 
Tunnell went 2-for-4 with a run scored while both Saquilon and McIntosh drove in a pair of runs. Saquilon went 1-for-3 at the dish while McIntosh went 1-for-4. Riley also went 1-for-4 with a pair of RBIs while Inbody went 1-for-2 with a run scored.
 
In the opener, the Storm gave way to a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first, but answered in the top half of the second on a two-out single to right field by Riley that tied the game at 1-1. That was only run SNU scored in the first game. The Knights scored four in the third, one each in the fourth and fifth innings and closed it out with three in the sixth to make it 10-1.
 
Riley went 2-for-3 with an RBI while Tunnell went 2-for-4. Tim Cole (0-2) took the loss, allowing five runs on seven hits in two and one-thirds inning of work.
 
The Crimson Storm now get set to open up Sooner Athletic Conference play, Thursday, at Oklahoma City in a 2 p.m. single, nine-inning game.