Box Score LA MIRADA, Calif. --- Biola baseball had a banner day offensively, riding five extra base hits and nine walks to salvage the series finale against the San Diego Christian Hawks with a 9-6 win.
One day after being held to three runs across two losses, breaks offensively came flooding in for Biola Saturday and it seemed the Eagles could do anything they wanted against shaky pitching from the Hawks. Each of the first six batters in the Biola order reached base at least twice, with the two at the top,
Andrew Smith and
Tanner Swire, reaching safely at least four times and scoring three runs each.
Smith finished the game a home run short of the cycle, but took care of his extraordinary feat for the day by stealing home in the top of the sixth. The Eagles' leadoff man finished with the other components of the cycle, three runs scored and two RBI. After today's victory, Smith is now tied atop the Eagles' leaderboard in doubles and stolen bases and has sole possession of the team lead in runs scored.
Julian Jarrard would follow Smith's two-run triple in the sixth inning with fireworks of own. The two-run homerun Jarrard hit off Hawks reliever Zack Kaprowski gave the Eagles five runs in the sixth and a four-run lead heading into the final third of the ballgame. Had it not been for the screen behind the left field wall, the ball would have easily carried 500 feet on the fly. Concisely, Jarrard's sixth blast of the season should be etched in the memories of everyone at the diamond for quite some time.
Andrew Frank and
Andres Rodriguez also joined the hit parade early in the game to give Biola leads in the top of the first and third innings. Frank's two-out RBI double in the first plated Swire to crack open the scoring. While Rodriguez would make San Diego Christian pay in the third for intentionally walking Frank ahead of him by singling through the left side with two outs to score Swire and stake the Eagles to a 3-1 advantage.
However, the Hawks would make this a ballgame by forcing the Eagles to turn to the bullpen early on Saturday. Biola starter
Eric Diomartich had trouble establishing command of his fastball and exited with no outs in the third after the Hawks scored their second run of the inning and knotted the score at three.
Luckily for the Eagles,
Daniel Jang and
Buddy Brouwer each delivered one of their better appearances so far this season. Jang was able to restrict the Hawks to only one more run after relieving Diomartich and held on until the Eagles exploded for five in the top of the sixth. Jang went 4.1 innings, struck out four, surrendered five hits, but walked none to record his second win of the season.
Brouwer all but shut the door on SDC before handing the ball to
Jimmy Gallarda in the bottom of the ninth. The southpaw came in with one down in the seventh and struck out Brooks Fages and Geordy Smith on impressive breaking stuff.
Biola improves to 7-15 (5-13 GSAC) and drops San Diego Christian to the cellar of the Golden State Athletics Conference with a 5-18 (4-14 GSAC) record. The Eagles return for more action Tuesday, welcoming non-conference opponent CSU San Marcos for a 2:00 p.m. game.
