LA MIRADA, Calif. — Biola Softball used a massive sixth inning to claim a win over Azusa Pacific in its PacWest Conference opener on Saturday. The Eagles trailed APU throughout the contest but a go-ahead RBI from Kendall Nakano and 3-run hit from Lillianna Garcia helped Biola to an 8-3 win.
DJ Symons threw a complete game on Saturday, racking up seven strikeouts as she highlighted her swing-and-miss stuff. The effort helped her pick up her third pitching victory of the year.
Her offense was locked in to support her throughout the night, getting consistent base runners in each innings. It just took until the sixth inning for the big run scoring to break through, along with the base hits. The Eagles ended up with 13 hits overall to manufacture the eight runs. Eight runs is the most in a game for BU since back on the first weekend of the season.
The top of the lineup was locked in for Biola as Jackie Ibarra and Alexa Medley Sherd had two hits and Nakano was 3-for-3 in the no. 3 spot in the lineup. Ibarra touched home plate three times and Mikala Huskey scored twice for BU.
After a single Biola run in the first inning, APU scored twice in the second and once in the third to take a 3-1 lead. Symons blanked the Cougars for the rest of the game, though, limiting them to just one hit over those final four frames.
Biola was struggling to push runs across until the latter half of the game, stranding one runner in the second, three in the third and two in the fourth. In that fourth inning, they were able to scratch a single run across on a two-out Nakano single but could not yet tie the game.
They tied the game in the fifth on a screaming line drive from Garcia, which split the defense in left field, and then they exploded in the sixth.
While Symons threw the complete game, Biola's prickly offense forced APU to put four different pitchers in the game. This should set up an interesting pitching matchup for game two of Saturday's doubleheader.
The win snaps a 3-game losing streak for Biola and helps them begin league play with a perfect 1-0 mark. Azusa Pacific drops below .500 with the loss.
The two teams will play again at 5:30 p.m. Follow the game live at https://www.pacwestnetwork.tv/biola/.
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