LA MIRADA, Calif. --- Biola Baseball's start to the 2020 season was a great testament to the personality and culture the new coaching staff wanted to instill in the Eagles. They set themselves up to play strong and fast, showed grit that sustained a long winning streak to conclude non-conference play, and embraced the Biola Boys moniker as they shot up the NCAA DII West Regional and National Polls.

Ultimately 2020 will be marked by a series of firsts, seeing as there was just enough time to squeeze a few major accomplishments in. It was the first year the Eagles were eligible for NCAA postseason play. Head Coach Jeff Calhoon picked up his first win, first series sweep and first PacWest win as a coach in just over one month. 

And Biola Baseball earned its first nation ranking as an NCAA DII program on February 19 before eventually moving up to No. 8 in nation just four weeks later. That No. 8 ranking is the highest achieved by any Biola sports program during the University's first year of full NCAA membership and should set the Eagles up to be a team to beat in the West Region at the start of the 2021 season. 

But there's no doubt the 2020 season was special from the start. Facing off with a team that had qualified for the NCAA West Regional playoffs in 2019, Lason Kindreich started his stellar opening to 2020 with six shutout innings while his offense smashed seven extra-base hits to take a 6-0 lead after five innings and win the opening game 8-3. 

Lack of light pushed the conclusion of game two into Saturday morning, but Honus Kindreich shut the door on the Otters to earn another win that came on the heels of another early 5-0 lead for Biola. And then the movie reel started to record: the series finale was an offensive tug-of-war from the start and finished with a combined 31 hits between the teams. But the final hit was biggest of all, as catcher Ben Smith went down to get a pitch at his knees in the bottom of the ninth and blasted it over the wall in left-center for the first walkoff of his collegiate career:

BSB: Drive home safely! Ben Smith sends the Biola faithfull home happy, with a walk-off solo shot to cap off a thrilling 10-9 victory and series sweep for the Eagles! (Video contains audio commentary describing the play). pic.twitter.com/NN6G6zxcIZ

— Biola Athletics (@BiolaAthletics) February 2, 2020

The next week of games at Eagles Diamond only added to the dramatic peak of Smith's walkoff with sustained excitement and close games that made for a great few days at Eagles Diamond. Led to its first shutout by six bullpen arms and RobertAnthony Cruz' third homerun over the first six games of the season, Biola beat Colorado Christian 2-0 to kick off its stretch of five games in three days. 

Then the tension went up a notch on Friday as the Eagles needed back-to-back homeruns from Andy Van Antwerp and Ben Smith to tie the series opener at 4-4 and take a 5-4 lead. Colorado Springs would tie the game in the ninth with a solo homerun, but senior Jacob Portaro delivered Biola's second walkoff hit of the season with a rocket off the wall in center and sealed the fifth win of the season for the Biola Boys. 

After a brief break between games, Larson Kindreich marched out to the mound and had a dominant outing that encapsulated how close to unhittable the lefty was in 2020. Kindreich would eventually earn PacWest Pitcher of the Week and NCBWA West Region Pitcher of the Week honors after striking out 15 Colorado Springs batters and allowing just three hits in seven innings. 

The superlative stats from Kindreich's start were staggering: he struck out every member of the Mountain Lions' starting lineup at least once, recorded eight K's in a row from the fourth to the seventh inning, threw 43 strikes in 47 pitches over one stretch and posted 22 two-strike counts and 22 swing-and-misses. 

After two more outings before play was halted, Kindreich struckout 48 batters in 30 innings and delivered four quality starts with at least eight strikeouts. That led to two NCAA-Era program records over the course of the sophomore's 30 innings: 25.2 consecutive scoreless innings and a 0.00 ERA. 

Joey Leavitt followed up Kindreich's shutout with six scoreless innings to begin his start on Saturday and Biola won the third-game against Colorado Springs with only one hit, scoring runs on a sacrifice fly, a walk and a passed ball. Then the Eagles only recorded three hits in the second game of the doubleheader, with solo homeruns from Cruz and Ryan Gallegos providing the only runs for the home team. But a strong opening five innings from Andrew Beauvais and Anthony Villegas was carried home by 1.1 innings with three strikeouts from Tyler Mead. 

BSB: Tyler Mead gets thrown into the fire and records the BIG strikeout with two outs and the bases loaded! Game still tied at 1-1. (Video contains audio commentary describing the play). pic.twitter.com/5ReBwWAfJj

— Biola Athletics (@BiolaAthletics) February 15, 2020

Mead would close out what would unfortunately be the Biola Boys' final home game of the year and limit the Colorado Springs Cougars to just eight runs in the four-game set. Time would tell that the series sweep was a great accomplishment for the Eagles, and the pitching staff particularly, as Colorado Springs ended the season on a nine-game winning streak and scored 42 runs in three games the week after it faced Biola. 

BSB: Ballgame! Tyler Meade breaks off the 12-6 bender to record the final out of the game! Eagles win 2-1! (Video contains audio commentary describing the play). pic.twitter.com/vqTEQ4QPTC

— Biola Athletics (@BiolaAthletics) February 16, 2020

After a week off, the Eagles flew off to Hawaii and went 3-1 in the games they were able to get in. Biola hit four homeruns in the road opener at Hawaii Hilo and scored a run in each of the first four innings in the second part of the doubleheader on February 28. Andrew Beauvais allowed just two hits and zero earned runs over 4.2 innings that game to secure Biola's seventh win in a row and Biola jumped up to No. 9 in the national poll the following week.

Calhoon's group ended up scoring seven runs over the first three innings of the final game of 2020. Ryan Gallegos hit his fourth homerun over the final five games in the third inning against Hawaii Pacific and was followed shortly thereafter by a two-out single from Cruz that would give the second baseman 10 RBI's in 14 games. Gallegos finished the year as the PacWest's leader in both slugging percentage (.821) and on-base percentage (.579) while leading the team with five homeruns and 11 RBI's. Cruz also hit five bombs and ended the year with an active 20-game streak of reaching base safely. 

In addition to the No. 8 national ranking, Biola Baseball also finished the year with a No. 18 ranking from the Collegiate Baseball Newspaper and a No. 1 rating from Boyd's World Iterative Strength Rating of all NCAA DII program's in the country. The Eagles were the only PacWest team in the NCAA Top-25 and the only member in Boyd's World's top-15. 

"I'm really proud of this group, so much so that I'm disappointed that the season had to end so soon," said Head Coach Jeff Calhoon. "I'm thankful for the commitment from our players, our coaching staff, and our administration, and I'm really excited for what the future has in store for Biola Baseball. We're going to miss the seniors and their leadership, but our returners we have coming back make next year exciting; I think we have begun moving in the direction we want to go in for the future."

Obviously, it is heartbreaking that this great start had to be cut short. But the return of this team in 2021, reloaded with new additions and strengthened with even more months of practice and team-culture formation, cannot but set the foundation for an exciting future for Biola Baseball. Fourteen games in 2020 was enough time to do something special. But just imagine what could be in 2021 and beyond now that the Eagles can build on this kind of success.