LA MIRADA, Calif. --- After a whirlwind 7-1 road trip to the Bay Area, Biola Softball gets to take a bit of a break this week before concluding its home schedule Thursday night against Concordia Irvine.

THIS WEEK: vs. No. 12 Concordia Irvine (40-6, 26-3 PacWest) - Thursday April 25 at 4 p.m. (DH) - SENIOR NIGHT

MULTIMEDIA: Live video and live stats will be provided free of charge for all Biola home contests. Information on live video and live stats made available for road games will be listed along with the previews of those games below.

TICKETS: Biola home events are always free to Biola students, staff, faculty and alumni. Children 12 and under are also always free. General admission is $6 and discounted tickets for opposing school students, guests under 18 and seniors are $4. See ticketing information for road contests below each preview below.

ABOUT LAST WEEK: Biola went 7-1 on its Bay Area road trip and clinched its place in the 2019 NCCAA World Series in Botetourt, Virginia. The Eagles will represent the West Region after meeting its qualifying standard of being top-3 in the PacWest Conference after this past week of games. It's Biola's first postseason qualification since it made it to Alexandria, Louisiana for the first round of the NAIA National Championship in 2015. Biola swept Dominican over a four-game set on Tuesday and Wednesday of last week and took three of four from Notre Dame de Namur over the next two days. Kayla Neff earned PacWest Player of the Week honors for her efforts last week. It was a week where just about every member of the Biola lineup produced as BU outscored opponents 50-18. Paige Austin led the Eagles' pitching rotation, appearing in seven of the eight contests and logging over 29 innings pitched. She went 4-0, earned a save and had a sub-0.80 ERA. Biola now only has Southern California play left with this week's home set vs. Concordia and next week's road doubleheader at Azusa Pacific.

BIOLA (23-13, 18-8 PacWest) at No. 12 CONCORDIA IRVINE (40-6, 26-3 PacWest): Thursday April 25 at 4pm (DH) \\ Live Stats \\ Live Video \\ PROMOTIONS: Senior Night, Chick-Fil-A Day
These two teams have seen each other a total of 92 times dating back to their first meeting on March 11, 1993. Biola trails the all-time series 66-25-1, including a pair of losses in Irvine earlier this season. The big ticket game as part of this contest is the game where Biola's Paige Austin and Concordia Irvine's Callie Nunes will presumably go head-to-head. Nunes is having a remarkable sophomore season and has two NFCA NCAA Division II Pitcher of the Week awards under her belt. She's 29-4 with a 0.96 ERA and 222 strikeouts in 175.2 innings pitched. She's the lifeblood of this CUI team and the reason they're ranked in the top-15 and have just six losses this year. However, Austin has been matching Nunes basically step-for-step since the pair entered the PacWest Conference one year ago. The major difference being a much heavier usage rate for CUI's sophomore. This season Austin is 10-5 with a 1.60 ERA and 99 strikeouts in 100.2 innings. Game one of the doubleheader in Irvine earlier this year was the first time the two started a game head-to-head. Austin allowed one earned run over six innings and allowed five hits. Nunes went the complete seven innings and held BU to just two hits while striking out seven. Austin will rely on the Biola hitters to figure something out this go-around. That will be a tough nut to crack as Nunes has 12 starts this season of five or more innings with two or fewer hits allowed, including four no-hitters. The earlier games against CUI were low-scoring affairs with CUI winning 3-0 and 5-4. In the second game Kayla Neff hit a game-tying homerun off Nunes who had come on in relief, proving she's not totally invincible. Biola will need all four of its pitchers to be on point this week if it wants to accomplish something special since CUI's next pitcher up, freshman Erika Morris, is no slouch in the circle. She's thrown in 25 games this year over 93.2 innings pitched and has a 7-2 record and 1.72 ERA. She does not rely on the strikeout as much as Nunes does, so Biola's potent lineup should have a shot if they wait to bite on the right pitches.

SENIOR NIGHT: Biola will host senior night ceremonies for its five seniors prior to the start of Thursday's doubleheader. The ceremony will begin promptly at 3:30 p.m. Set to be honored are: Andi Hormel, Areana Ramos, Kaile Chavez, Hailey Boyett and Missy Poti.

STREAKY SOPHOMORE: Ruth Munoz comes into Senior Night riding a 10-game hitting streak. It's the longest such streak of the season for a Biola hitter. She's the 11th player since 2010 to have a streak of 10 games or longer. The longest in this last decade was Lauren Gandy's 18 games in 2011. The program record is when Amerra Kesterson had 19-straight in 2006.

SHE'S REALLY IM-POTI-TANT: Missy Poti has had a tremendous senior season for the Eagles. She's played a great corner infield for BU and produced runs at a remarkable rate for BU. She may not lead the team in hits or batting average, but she's the best clutch hitter on the team so far this year with a team-high eight multi-RBI games. She's second on the team in RBI (20), despite being seventh on the team in hits (25) and sixth in extra-base hits (8). Her RBI:Hit ratio of 0.80 is the best on the team with only Madison Blossey (0.75) and Kylie Velasco (0.66) coming close. Poti had three multi-RBI games last week and Biola won every game where she produced at least one RBI. This season Poti will set career-bests for doubles, hits, RBI, runs, walks and fielding percentage.

SHE'S DEPENDABLE: Areana Ramos is the only player to have started and played in every single game since she returned from injury on March 1. She's appeared in 24 of the Eagles' 24 contests since then. The team has gone 18-6 in that span. Ramos has still not played in the minimum number of games to have countable conference statistics, but after these final four games she will be, having appeared in more than two-thirds of the teams' games.

UPCOMING MILESTONES:
Hailey Boyett - 150 Games Played (139)
Hailey Boyett - 125 Hits (109)
Hailey Boyett - 400 Putouts (343)
Hailey Boyett - 75 RBI (62)
Andi Hormel - 200 Games Played (180)
Andi Hormel - 150 Hits (113)
Andi Hormel - 350 Assists (313)
Kayla Neff - 150 Hits (132)
Kayla Neff - 600 Putouts (569)
Kayla Neff - 75 RBI (74)
Missy Poti - 400 Putouts (372)
Areana Ramos - 175 Games Played (157)
Areana Ramos - 100 Runs Scored (87)
Areana Ramos - 150 Hits (148)
Areana Ramos - 30 Doubles (27)
Areana Ramos - 20 Homeruns (18)
Areana Ramos - 200 Putouts (170)
Areana Ramos - 30 Outfield Assists (27)

GETTING TO KNOW YOU: Biola has a brand new coaching staff this season as Head Coach Nikki Udria begins her first season at the helm for BU. Along with Udria is assistant Justine McLean. Though young, the staff has a wealth of big-time experience as Udria and McLean have NCAA Division I roots (Oregon/Florida). Udria was on the staff last year as an assistant coach under Lorie Coleman, taking over for Janie Takeda who took a job at the University of Oklahoma. Udria played four years at the University of Oregon before graduating in 2017. She led the Ducks to four postseason appearances and three Pac-12 Championships while earning major accolades all four years of her career. In 2017 she was an NFCA NCAA Division I First Team All-American. McLean is from Rancho Cucamonga, but she played her college ball for the Florida Gators the same time Udria was at Oregon. McLean earned All-SEC honors and made the Women's College World Series all-tournament team, while helping the Gators to a 229-36 overall record between 2014-17. The Gators won the Women's College World Series her freshman and sophomore seasons. In addition to their regular coaching duties, both regularly host camps/clinics throughout the year. View those at this camp link. Kristin Halte recently re-joined the Biola coaching staff as the team's pitching coach. She was on staff under Head Coach Lorie Coleman from 2012-16 and returns this year to help the Eagles' talented young pitching staff.

NEXT WEEK: at Azusa Pacific (30-14, 21-8 PacWest) - Thursday May 2 at 4 p.m. (DH)