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Connor Kostecka celebrating with teammates
Kyla McGuire
3
Winner Fresno Pacific FPU 11-17, 7-8 PacWest
1
Biola University BU-BASE 17-14, 8-11 PacWest
Winner
Fresno Pacific FPU
11-17, 7-8 PacWest
3
Final
1
Biola University BU-BASE
17-14, 8-11 PacWest
Score By Periods
Team 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
Fresno Pacific FPU 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 3 7 1
Biola University BU-BASE 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 4 0

W: Lizaola, Esteban (1-5) L: Carrillo, Kenny (4-2) S: Cooper, Garrett (4)

2
Fresno Pacific FPU 11-18, 7-9 PacWest
4
Winner Biola University BU-BASE 18-14, 9-11 PacWest
Fresno Pacific FPU
11-18, 7-9 PacWest
2
Final
4
Biola University BU-BASE
18-14, 9-11 PacWest
Winner
Score By Periods
Team 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
Fresno Pacific FPU 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 2 5 1
Biola University BU-BASE 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 2 4 8 2

W: Villegas, Anthony (4-2) L: Schellenberg, Carson (0-4)

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

Connor The Cardiac Kid

Connor Kostecka hits a walkoff two-run blast in extra innings to push Biola to a series-split with Fresno Pacific.

LA MIRADA, Calif. --- With all the things that changed from Friday's offensive flurry to Saturday's nail-biting doubleheader, the basic premise of Fresno Pacific-Biola baseball remained the same: the Eagles and Sunbirds split another series after some wild twists and turns.

The longtime rivals of 13 years move to 18-18 all-time against each other and split a four-game series for the fourth-straight time dating back to 2011 after FPU took game one 3-1 and Biola won the finale 4-2 in extra innings.

Where Friday's doubleheader tallied 36 runs between the two teams, Saturday's games offered great performances from starting pitchers on both sides and late offense that decided things.

In game one, Kenny Carrillo turned in his best performance of the season and was a bulldog for eight-plus innings. The junior right held the Sunbirds hitless until the fourth inning and threw five pitchers or fewer to every batter save to. Carrillo induced a lot of weak contact with nine groundouts and 10 flyouts and had the longest outing of his season with 114 pitches.

He allowed just three run-scoring hits, all solo homeruns, and pitched more than good enough to help his team win. The Eagles just weren't able to get much going against Esteban Lizaola, who also had his best start of the season.

Biola was able to avoid a shutout while continuing its impressive streak of consecutive games with a homerun thanks to Jackson Collins in the ninth. Collins got around on a fastball over the plate and clanged the ball of the scoreboard to tie him with RJ Bates for a team-high six homeruns on the year. That allowed the Eagles to push their streak to 14-straight games with a homerun after Jerron Largusa and Connor Kostecka both homered in the second game Saturday. But the run was also all Biola was able to muster in the 3-1 loss.

The Eagles were able to capitalize on the craziness late in the series finale thanks to another great start from Dallas Burk, who match his season-long outing at 5.2 innings on Saturday. The senior left-hander has allowed just four runs over his last 10.1 innings at home over the last four week after he collected 11 groundouts on Saturday, He also surrendered just one hit, a single, over the first five innings of his start before handing the ball to Anthony Villegas to take the Eagles home.

After Villegas got out of the sixth inning for Burk, the craziness started for Biola at the plate in their second-to-last at-bats of the scheduled innings. It looked like Biola started something cooking with a leadoff single from Caleb Watson. But a double play from the Sunbirds emptied the bases with two outs and kept Biola at a two-run deficit. But RobertAnthony Cruz' hustle kept the inning alive for the Eagles, as Cruz reached first on a strikeout because of a rushed throw from the catcher that went for a throwing error.

Jerron Largusa immediately made the Sunbirds pay for their mistake with a two-run homerun on a slider that tied the game and sent his dugout into a frenzy. And that was the turning point in the game as the Eagles started to regain their aggressive confidence at the plate.

Villegas was huge in key moments over the next few innings and kept tossing up zeroes to give his team multiple chances to walk it off. The sophomore ended the seventh with a strike-'em-out, throw-'em-out double play before squandering a leadoff double from FPU in the eighth and retiring the side in order in the ninth.

In the meantime, the Eagles got close to score the winning run time and again until Kostecka became the hero. RJ Bates and Kostecka stood at second and third with one out in the seventh after the shortstop's double but were unable to score. Then the Eagles had runners at first and second with one out in the eighth before being held scoreless.

But Kostecka came into the plate in the ninth already finding success when lifting the ball because of that aforementioned double in the seventh that hit the base of the wall. He kept the same aggressive approach in his last at-bat against Carson Schellenberg and jumped on a 1-0 fastball to pull the ball over the right-field fence and trot around the bases to meet his team at home plate.

The homerun was Kostecka's second of the year and the first of his career at Eagles Diamond. Biola will stay at home for its next series, hosting Academy of Art for four games starting on Thursday.
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