The Eagles managed to avoid a sweep against San Diego Christian College over the weekend. The Eagles’ overall record sits at 7-15, and their Golden State Athletic Conference record rests at 5-13.
The series quickly took a bad turn in the first game. Gio Ochoa threw a no hitter with 148 pitches for San Diego Christian College. The Hawks had an impressive 12 runs to go along with the no hitter to sink the Eagles. The win snapped San Diego’s 16 game loss streak.
“Teams like them don’t have anything to lose,” said senior Andrew Smith. “They bring everything at you and we were kind of caught off guard.”
MOTIVATED TO WIN
The Hawks had five runs in the second inning and continued to stretch their lead in the third by tacking on two more runs. The fourth inning brought three more runs, bringing San Diego’s lead to 10, and in the seventh inning, left fielder Caeden Barnes brought in first baseman Stephen Haviar to finish off the game at 12-0.
Despite scoring the first run of the second game, the Eagles could not pull out a win to tie the series. Senior center fielder Rob Groschell singled out to left field to bring in sophomore utility hitter Andrew Frank to put the Eagles ahead 1-0.
The fifth inning sealed Biola’s fate. The Hawk’s catcher Joseph Tellez sent out a single to Frank in right field. Frank looked to have made the catch that would have ended the inning, but the umpires ruled it a dropped ball. The call put the Hawks ahead 3-1. Biola scored once more in the sixth inning, but could not get another run to regain their lead on the Hawks.
The Eagles came into the last game with the fire to stop the Hawks from sweeping with a 9-6 win. Biola got the first run in the high scoring game and kept the lead up until the fifth inning when San Diego pulled away 4-3.
The tides changed for Biola in the sixth inning, pulling away from the Hawks with six runs. Smith tripled to bring in two of his teammates and give the Eagles their lead back 5-4, and stole home to extend the lead 6-4.
“We were upset after Friday, and on Saturday we just went after it,” Smith said. “It motivated us a little more to get the win.”
The Eagles finished the sixth inning 9-4 and held onto the lead to win the game, despite two more runs scored by the Hawks in the eighth and ninth innings.
CANCELLED DUE TO RAIN
Biola’s series against California State University San Marcos was cancelled due to rain. The Eagles have a few more days to prepare for a conference series against William Jessup University starting on Friday, March 6.
“We still have a lot of individual work that we need to do,” Smith said. “Having an extra day to practice is always an advantage.”
The Eagles need to focus on winning nearly all of their upcoming conference series in order to make it to playoffs.
“We have to learn from our mistakes,” Smith said. “We have to change our mentality and it starts with individual efforts and desires that will correlate to a team effort.”