Box Score LA MIRADA, Calif. --- Everything that had been plaguing Biola Baseball over its past six games, all losses, disappeared on a glorious Friday afternoon at Eagles Diamond, where Biola beat Arizona Christian, 11-3.
 
The Eagles got great, timely hitting, a lot of it, and solid defense, aside from a few bobbles in the very early innings, to backup Friday starter Garrett Picha. Picha needed less backing up than he normally does, because where he's normally a pitcher who induces contact, he ended his eight-inning win with 10 strikeouts and no walks in a dominant performance.
 
Picha's dominance was a great sight, as he's struggled with keeping opposing teams off the scoreboard early in this season. It was great, but not even necessary though, because Biola's bats were on fire early and often throughout this one.
 
"Eleven runs is a lot," said Head Coach Jay Sullenger. "Runs haven't come easy to us thus far, and we haven't had too many games where you could breathe a little bit and feel like things were going our way, but it felt like that today."
 
The Eagles got on the board right away against ACU's ace Tommy Lay, tagging the starter for two runs immediately with a Rob Groeschell RBI groundout and a Jeremy Barth RBI single. Barth went on to reach base all four times he went to the plate in a standout day, going 3-for-3 with a walk, two runs and two RBI.
 
Arizona Christian cut the lead in half in their part of the second when Ryan Lischer took a Picha pitch deep over the left field wall, one of two solo shots Picha would surrender on the afternoon.
 
A Julia Jarrard sacrifice fly and another Barth single in the third extended the Eagles' lead to 4-1 in the bottom of the third and showed an offensive resiliency that just has not been there to this point in the season.
 
"Offensively as a team we took some good approaches," said Sullenger. "We were working hard this week on some things, and the guys were really able to execute on those. It was fun to see them get guys on, get them over and get them in."
 
After a balk brought a run home for ACU, Jarrard hit the skin off the ball as he notched his NAIA-leading fifth homerun of the season on a solo shot to right-center in the fifth.
 
Each team scored one in the sixth, leading up to the Eagles' breakout five-run inning in the seventh. Lay had a short leash in that inning, facing one batter and allowing Paul Slater to reach on a single. Perhaps the coaching staff of ACU should have let him work his way out of it, because it got a lot worse for the Firestorm when he left.
 
"Paul did a great job for us today," said Sullenger. "When your leadoff guy gets on base it is just a great catalyst for our offense."
 
The new pitcher walked Tanner Swire and then got two straight outs in the air leading Barth up to the plate with freshman Colton Wheeler taking the mound.
 
The moment of the game came when Sullenger called a double-steal with runners on the corners, confusing Wheeler and leading to Biola's seventh run and Swire standing at second after the second of his three steals on the day.
 
Barth would walk, Andres Rodriguez would get plunked and it was bases loaded for Andrew Frank. Frank got the start in right field today and had sacrificed himself twice leading into this at bat in the eight. No sacrifice this time as Frank hit a bases-clearing double to left-center to break the game open at 10-3.
 
A Rawley Hughes single scored Frank to put a stopper on the day's scoring before Picha came out for his final inning of work in the eighth.
 
Picha faced four batters in the eighth, getting a groundout, popout and strikeout to close the book on his best outing of the season.
 
"Garrett threw well. Any time you hold the team to only three runs you're going to have a good chance to win, and it was good to see that from him," said Sullenger.
 
The Eagles improve to 5-11 (3-10 GSAC) and drop the Firestorm to 3-10 (3-10 GSAC) heading into the conclusion of this three-game set tomorrow. The Eagles host ACU for a doubleheader beginning at 11:00 a.m.