LA MIRADA, Calif. --- Catcher River Fawley did not have to wait until his senior day to have his most memorable afternoon of the season. The Anaheim, California native hit three homeruns during Biola's doubleheader on Friday and drove in six runs to help Biola to a 13-3 win in game one of the doubleheader.
Fawley hit a two-run shot in game one followed by two more roundtrippers in game two to finish as Biola's leading homerun-hitter after the day with eight total. But the Trailblazers got right to work after Fawley hit a three-run bomb in the first inning of game two to give the Eagles a 6-2 lead, successfully completely an impressive comeback for a 9-8 victory.
The Eagles are now 26-15 and 18-13 in PacWest play after the doubleheader split. Dixie State manages to stay over .500 in conference play thanks to the come-from-behind win and is now 16-15 in PacWest.
Biola got a great start from Troy Stainbrook in game one to earn its first win of the series, seeing the lefty make the longest outing of his career as an Eagles. Stainbrook started with three perfect innings before Jagun Leavitt singled to begin the fourth and retired eight men in a row to end his outing.
He earned his fourth victory of the season on 114 pitches, collecting seven strikeouts while only surrendering three hits and one walk.
When Stainbrook stumbled slightly in the fourth inning and allowed two runs, Biola's offense picked him up immediately to tie the game at two and kept the bats rolling to add six more in the fifth. Ryan Gallegos hit his second homerun in as many games with a solo shot that plated the Eagles' first run. Then Connor Kostecka delivered a clutch single with two outs in the fourth to score Jerron Largusa and tie the game.
Kostecka's RBI knock was the second of 12 runs the Eagles scored in two-out situations in game one. Following a Colton Worthington single that gained Biola's first lead of the game in the fifth, Biola scored five more times in the inning with two outs to take an 8-2 lead into the final four innings.
Jerron Largusa provided the biggest blow of the fifth for the home team, launching a three-run homerun to left that eventually chased starter Jayden Murray.
Biola added five more runs before the game was done because of run-scoring hits from Ricky Perez and others. Perez had hits in both parts of the doubleheader to push his hitting streak to 12 games, which sits just one game behind Largusa's 13-game streak earlier this season for Biola's longest hitting streak of the season.
The Eagles appeared to be on track for another blowout victory in game two after they tattooed starter Aaron Pope for six runs. Five of the first six hitters got hits in the first for Biola and Pope was removed from the game without recording an out after Fawley blasted a three-run homerun to center.
Dixie State deserves credit for pulling up its bootstraps and scoring in each of the next three innings to overtake the Eagles. The Trailblazers only had two doubles mixed into their nine hits but still scored nine runs and had a 9-7 lead after three and a half.
The Eagles made it a one-run game on a run-scoring double by Jacob Portaro in the bottom of the fourth but no additional runs were scored in the game. Righty Tanner Howell collected his second save in as many days with 1.2 innings of work on 27 pitches and did not allow any Eagles to reach base via hit or walk.
Biola will try to salvage the series split on Saturday by winning the finale of the four-game set. First pitch is scheduled for 1:00 p.m.
