It's been a few years since #Ronnie Loeffler# commanded the mound at Wong Stadium as a high school pitcher. In his return, the pitcher led the University of Hawaii at Hilo to a 2-1 season-opening victory over Northwest Nazarene University.

The Crusaders won game two 8-4 in extra innings.

Over 6.2 innings, Loeffler gave up just five hits and a walk while striking out four.

With the game tied at one, the Vulcans (1-1) received a wild-pitch gift that allowed #John Hoffman# to score the winning run.

#Johnathan James# had two of the Vulcans four hits.

Game two got off to a rocky start as the Crusaders (1-1) tallied three runs on two hits and two Vulcan errors.

"The good thing about this is that we have the ability to come back," UHH head coach #Joey Estrella# said. "However with that being said when we have the opportunities to win the game, we've got to understand what it takes to win the game.

"We just didn't do that in the seventh when we had the opportunities. In the eighth we swung at bad pitches to get them off the hook. In the last inning, we had to play some people out of their normal position so that hurt us."

Trailing 4-3 in the bottom of the seventh scraped together a run on two hits but left three runners on base. After a pair of walks and #David Keller's# single loaded the bases, #Tyson Goo's# hot shot to short scored the game tying run. With the opportunity to notch another victory at hand, a fly-out ended the rally.

The Crusaders scored four runs on three hits and the Vulcans' fifth error of the game in the ninth.

#Kalehua Moniz# and #Jeff Hanna# collected two hits each of the team's 10 for the game.