SAN RAFAEL, Calif. — Early offense provided the luxury of a relatively stress-free game for Biola Softball in game three of its four-game affair on the road with Holy Names. The Eagles scored one in the first, one in the second and a pair in the third to build a big lead and hold on for a 7-4 victory.
An Abie Nowak RBI triple got things going in a powerful first inning for the Eagles. She drove in Maddie Riley who took full advantage of her no. 2 spot in the Biola lineup to hit a double and be brought home early.
The second inning saw some scoring ignited by Sicili Brittingham for the second day in a row. Brittingham wore one for BU to reach base and was sacrificed on to second base by Alexis Lara. Then Allie Beck came up and hit a double to push Sicili home and make it 2-0 Eagles.
The lead again doubled the next inning when the Eagles' starter Raylene Roybal doubled to keep the extra-base hits coming for BU. Another extra-base hit brought Roybal home as Kaitlyn Hawkins left the yard for the first time in her collegiate career to make it 4-0.
Roybal was cruising on the other end of things, facing just one batter over the minimum through an unblemished first three innings of work. The Eagles turned a double play in the bottom of the first to erase a leadoff walk.
Roybal would hold HNU scoreless through her first four innings, before the Hawks found a way to string together four hits to put three on the board in the bottom of the fifth to tighten the game considerably. The inning ended with two runners stranded on base for HNU as Brie Nowak laid out to make a diving catch on a pop-up in foul territory.
Biola would strike next for three of its own runs in the top of the seventh to get the insurance it would turn out to need. Jennifer Morinishi set the tone for the inning with a leadoff double, and the big hit of the frame came four batters later as Brittingham doubled and pushed across Roybal and Hawkins to extend out to 7-3.
The seventh inning alone featured three doubles, which were three of eight extra-base hits in this ballgame for a Biola offense which was clearly seeing the ball well. Seven Eagles had at least one hit of two bases or more. Biola, as a team, had 12 total extra-base hits in the previous 11 games played this season.
The Hawks got a leadoff solo homer in their half of the seventh, but that was it for them as Roybal finished HNU off with a groundout and then back-to-back strikeouts to get another complete game win. She was keeping the ball down in this one, inducing 12 of her 21 outs via the ground ball.
The Eagles improve to 7-5 with the win and will look to win the series in game two on Saturday. First pitch of the second game should come just after 2:45 p.m. Follow the game live at https://portal.stretchinternet.com/hnu/.
