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Brandon Cody hitting a baseball
Kyla McGuire
6
Hawai'i Pacific HPU 20-23, 7-18 PacWest
7
Winner Biola University BU-BASE 22-15, 13-12 PacWest
Hawai'i Pacific HPU
20-23, 7-18 PacWest
6
Final
7
Biola University BU-BASE
22-15, 13-12 PacWest
Winner
Score By Periods
Team 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
Hawai'i Pacific HPU 0 1 0 3 1 0 0 0 1 6 10 0
Biola University BU-BASE 0 0 4 0 0 0 0 3 X 7 12 2

W: Englert, Brayden (4-2) L: Savea, Joshua (1-2) S: Ludeman, Josh (4)

Game Recap: Baseball | | Brandon Taylor, Assistant Sports Information Director

Sophomores Key In Victory

Brandon Cody walloped a grand slam and his fellow sophomores hit big doubles in the eighth to push Biola past Hawaii Pacific, 7-6.

LA MIRADA, Calif. --- Old history repeated itself a little bit at Eagles Diamond on Thursday as the Hawaii Pacific Sharks traveled to La Mirada for the first time since 2005. Each of the teams' previous two meetings at Eagles Diamond ended in one-run wins for Biola and the trend continued with a 7-6 win for the Eagles to open the three game series.

Head Coach Justin Duarte's group improves to 14-5 at home with its fifth win at Eagles Diamond over the past six games. The Eagles also pull above .500 in PacWest play for the first time since Biola was 5-4 after a doubleheader on March 15.

Although the Eagles couldn't score the first runs of the game in their first two at-bats they chipped away at starter Evan Spitzer's pitch count until Spitzer surrendered the lead in the third inning. Biola forced Spitzer to throw 21 pitches in the first and 16 in the second before two walks and a single loaded the bases for a Brandon Cody grand slam.

Cody smashed a 2-0 cement-mixer slider over the left-centerfield fence to put Biola up 4-1 on his fifth homerun of the season and 16th extra-base hit. The outfielder became the fourth Eagle to reach 25 RBI's with the grand slam and also had a triple in the contest to raise his slugging percentage by almost 40 points.

As one of the other most prolific offenses in the PacWest, Hawaii Pacific responded right back with three runs in the next-half inning to tie it and added one more in the fifth to take the 5-4 lead.

The runs dried up for a spell after that as the swingmen Joshua Savea and Brayden Englert really settled in. Englert earned the win in the contest after giving up just two runs over five innings of relief. He struckout four and induced two big double plays to prevent HPU from extending the lead.

His counterpart Savea ran out of gas in the bottom of the eighth inning as his pitch count climbed over 70 pitches. Savea had thrown 80 pitches five days prior in Hawaii Pacific's game against Point Loma and walked Andy Van Antwerp to begin the eighth before sophomore Connor Kostecka smashed the left field wall with a double that tied the score at 5-5.

Then the Eagles immediately pounced on the fastball from the next reliever to the tune of three-straight hits, including two doubles from RobertAnthony Cruz and Jerron Largusa to push Biola's lead to 7-5.

With the top of the order coming up in the ninth, HPU to runners at the corners to start the inning and had its two best hitters coming to the plate in an attempt to tied the game. But closer Josh Ludeman shut the door with a groundout and a strikeout to seal the 7-6 victory to Biola. It's Ludeman's second save against the Sharks this season after he closed out a 10-6 win on February 25.

The teams will return to Eagles Diamond on Friday for a doubleheader scheduled to start at 12 noon.
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