LA MIRADA, Calif. --- Every year Biola Baseball gets into game shape for their season by splitting up and participating in a best of five Red vs. Black series in the fall. Outside of a few fall games, this is new Head Coach Jay Sullenger's only chance to see his squad in action before the season begins, so the stakes are high.
 
In order to get prepped for the series two captains are selected, and the Red and Black squads are drafted by captain's picks throughout practice in the days leading up to the series.
 
This year the captains are sophomore backstop Sam Thorne and senior catcher/utility Mike Annunziata.
 
"Sam and Mike are the captains simply because they are the easiest to split, you know you are going to need a catcher on both teams and they are the two catchers," said Sullenger. "They are also two of your most talented players, so it is nice and equal to put one on both sides, that way no one gets a clear advantage from the start."
 
After the selection of the captains picks were made as the practice progressed and alternated between black and red picks. Black had the first pick, and due to that would be the vistor in the first game of the series.
 
Annunziata selected freshman pitcher Jess Yancosek as the first player in the draft. In order to save some time, Sullenger paired each pick with a similar player, and when one player got picked the other would be assigned to the opposing team.
 
As such, when Yancosek came off the board Garrett Picha, a returning left-handed pitcher, was assigned to Thorne's squad.
 
"These two are arguably our best pitchers this year, our one and two," said Sullenger. "Everybody can debate which one they might like better than the other, but for whatever reason they wanted Jesse."
 
The red team's first selection was senior shortstop Johnny Farrington. He was picked because of his defensive prowess that helps him make plays in the field to take runs away from the other team, a quality that is important in a short five game series. Farrington was matched with newcomer middle infielder Andres Rodriguez.

After the draft completed last week, the teams had a few days to prepare for the first game, which took place on Eagles Diamond Monday afternoon.
 
It was a tight battle that saw some solid starting pitching performances on both sides and eventually ended up going into extra innings before the black team took it 4-2 in the eighth inning.
 
Jason Kim started for the red team and ended up getting a no decision in the red squad's eventual loss. Sullenger said he saw a great performance by Kim that fell by the wayside due to a lack of run support.
 
On the offensive side, newcomers Jimmy Gallarda and Andrew Frank had solid days at the dish for the black team. Frank is a walk-on who took advantage of his chance to get in the line-up by driving one in and hitting the ball that would eventually result in the black team's game-winning runs.
 
He picked up an RBI on the black team's first run of the game, and then hit a pretty decent ground ball down the third base side in the top of the eighth which got through on an error and gave the black squad the 4-2 lead.
 
"Well, you'd like to see a team come out and really win it with a solid hit, rather than see a team lose it, but overall it was a good game with good energy, made for some good baseball," said Sullenger.
 
Black and Red met again on Tuesday afternoon, and they will continue their series with games three, four and five Thursday through Saturday.
 
Complete rosters for both teams:
 
Red Team
Captain- Sam Thorne
David McNeill
Garret Picha
Sean McCarrell
Johnny Farrington
Tanner Swire
Kona Olson
Aaron Chavez
Devin Slyvester
Luke Klocek
Tyler Bernheisel
Jason Kim
Paul Slater
DJ Schwab
 
Black Team
Captain- Mike Annunziata
Daniel Rassmussen
Sean Rothfuss
Andres Rodriguez
Jessee Yancosek
Andrew Frank
Jimmy Gallarda
Bryan Castelli
Julian Jarrard
Geoff Bishop
Eric Diomartrich
Sage Poland
Rob Groeschell
Boone Farrington