The Biola men’s baseball team faced off against the Bethesda College Flames in an out-of-conference game on Tuesday afternoon. This is the second time the two teams have met, the first meeting ending in a heartbreaking 4-3 extra inning loss for the Eagles. This time, the Eagles were coming off of a series win against Arizona Christian and were looking to keep the positive momentum going. Despite a decent number of hits, Biola struggled bringing anyone home and lost 5-2. This moves their overall record to 6-13, while their Golden State Athletic Conference record stays unchanged at 4-11.
Sophomore Jesse Yancosek started out well on the mound for the Eagles. His first two innings were shutouts, with no runs or hits registered. In the third, the Flames seemed to figure out his style and got five men on base, bringing home three for runs. He worked his way out of the jam, getting one man to fly out and recording a strikeout to end the inning. Freshman Daniel Jang replaced him after 3.1 innings and turned out to be the bright spot on the mound for the Eagles. Jang went 3.0 innings, allowing only one hit and no runs, as well as getting two strikeouts.
Adrian Peraza started out well for the Flames, as he pitched 5.0 innings, eight strikeouts and — though he allowed four hits — did not allow any Eagle to score. Biola was held scoreless by pitchers Braxton Diaz and Benjamin Lopez before they finally got on the board in the bottom of the ninth. Robert Browne was the only Flames pitcher to allow any runs, as a single from sophomore Jimmy Gallarda brought home senior Tanner Swire, followed by junior Julian Jarrard crossing home plate after a wild pitch. That ended the Eagles offensive productivity on the day and they walked away with the loss.
“When you have someone who isn’t throwing very hard, it’s easy to try and do too much with it,” said senior Andrew Smith. “You have to kind of simplify it and we didn’t do that today, as a unit.”
There was a bit of a scene that occurred in the bottom of the eighth, as senior Andrew Smith went up to bat for the Eagles. He was facing a two strike, no ball situation when it appeared as though the ball struck him in the shoulder then bounced into the catcher’s glove. Smith dropped the bat and starting jogging to first base when the home plate umpire called it a foul ball, thus giving him the third strike forcing him out. Smith disagreed with the call, as did the majority of the Eagles players and fans. One of the Eagles’ coaches also disagreed and was ejected from the game for it. Other than that one incident though, the game was smooth without any interruptions.
The Eagles’ next game is the first of the series against the San Diego Christian Hawks on Friday at 2 pm. The series was scheduled to take place at SDC, but due to issues with their field, it has been moved to Eagles Diamond.
