BETHANY, Okla. — Southern Nazarene had a wild ending in the Great American Conference opener with Henderson State as it fell just short in a 10-8 loss Friday afternoon.
 
The Crimson Storm (4-4, 0-1 GAC) tried to rally from being 10 runs down in the bottom of the eighth, but ran out of gas in the ninth.
 
The Reddies (4-3, 1-0 GAC) struck first and often Henderson State took a 2-0 lead in the top of the second and looked to make it 3-0, with a sacrifice fly, but Cole Lee gunned down the runner coming from third to end the inning. The Reddies though took advantage of two SNU errors in the top of the fifth to make it 5-0 and then added two more in the sixth to lead 7-0.
 
Henderson tried to put it away in the top of the eighth with three more runs to lead 10-0, but the Storm scored two in the eighth and sixth in the night. SNU kept the game alive in the bottom of the eighth when Cole Wagner doubled to left to score Garrett Perez to cut it to 10-1 and SNU made it 10-2 when Shelby Reese was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded.
 
The Storm took advantage of two walks and three hit by pitches in the bottom of the night. Tanner Maskey was the third batter to be hit in the inning as he was plunked with the bases loaded to cut it to 10-3. Lee then singled to left to push another run across before a Henderson error gave up two more runs to make it 10-6. Joe Toilolo drove home the final two runs of the inning when he ripped a double to left center to cut it to 10-8. That was it for the rally though for SNU.
 
Wagner finished 3-for-4 with an RBI and two runs scored. Perez was 1-for-3 wth a pair of runs scored and Lee went 2-for-5 with an RBI and a run scored. Ryan Mills (2-1) took his first loss of the year after giving up five runs, only two of which were earned, on seven hits. He struck out five in 4.2 innings of work.