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RobertAnthony Cruz swinging at a baseball
Kyla McGuire
6
Hawai'i Pacific HPU 21-25, 8-20 PacWest
9
Winner Biola University BU-BASE 24-16, 15-13 PacWest
Hawai'i Pacific HPU
21-25, 8-20 PacWest
6
Final
9
Biola University BU-BASE
24-16, 15-13 PacWest
Winner
Score By Periods
Team 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
Hawai'i Pacific HPU 0 0 3 0 2 0 0 1 0 6 11 3
Biola University BU-BASE 0 0 5 2 0 1 0 1 X 9 10 0

W: Despars, Chris (1-0) L: Adams, Shane (3-3) S: Ludeman, Josh (6)

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

Turning Up The Heat

RobertAnthony Cruz hit a massive grand slam to give the Eagles the lead while Biola pitchers recorded 13 strikeouts in a 9-6 win.

LA MIRADA, Calif. --- The Biola Eagles strong armed their way to a 9-6 win at home on Saturday to take the four-game series with Hawaii Pacific, three games to one.

The Eagles improve to 16-6 at home and have won seven of their last nine at Eagles Diamond with the win. Biola enters its final PacWest series of the year at Concordia next week with a 15-13 record in conference.

Starting pitcher Larson Kindreich had an electric fastball during the series finale, inducing 15 empty swings for Hawaii Pacific and 10 strikeouts over 4.2 innings. Eagles pitchers struck out 13 Sharks in the contest, with 11 on those strikeouts coming on the heater, to reach 10 more more strikeouts for the first time in 10 games.

Although Kindreich's pitch count prevented him from earning the win, his stuff played a big role in helping Biola grasp control of momentum in the game. He struck out five batters in a row from the first through the second inning and finished the game with the third-most strikeouts among PacWest pitchers with 58.

Chris Despars also had a good run on the hill with 2.1 scoreless innings for the win and tossed a huge zero in the sixth inning when HPU was down by just two runs and sent the heart of its lineup to the plate. The outing continued a great run for Despars, who has throwing 5.1 shutout innings over his last two appearances to help Biola to two wins.

But even in recognition of the solid pitching, the tide of the game completely turned with the Eagles at the plate in the bottom of the third. After the eight, nine and one hitters all reached with one out against Shane Adams, RoberthAnthony Cruz jumped all over a first-pitch fastball and obliterated the ball over the scoreboard in right. The grand slam turned a 3-0 deficit for Biola into a 4-3 lead that Biola never lost.

The homerun was Cruz' third of the year and gave him 30 RBI's on the year after he drove in seven runs in the series.

Biola added one more in the third and two in the fourth on a two-run single from Jackson Collins to go up 7-3. Then two more runs off Brandon Cody's bat gave the Eagles the cushion they needed to keep the Sharks at bay.

Josh Ludeman closed out the final 1.2 innings of the game to record his third save of the series. The right-hander actually allowed two hits this time. But he got some clutch help from the defense in the top of the eighth inning, as third baseman Joey Magro snagged a linedrive for the final out that would have scored two runs had the ball carried to the outfield.

The Eagles will travel to Irvine for the first of two doubleheaders on Friday. The first pitch is scheduled for 12 noon.
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