The Biola men’s baseball team earned their first sweep of the season against the William Jessup Warriors this past weekend, winning the first game on Friday 5-2, the second on Saturday 9-0 and the final game on Saturday 4-2. This improves their overall record to 10-15 and their Golden State Athletic Conference record to 8-15.
“The key to this weekend’s victories was that we got a quality start out of every one of our starting pitchers, had great defense and good execution at the plate,” said senior second baseman Tanner Swire.
The Eagles pitching staff performed well, as senior Garrett Picha, freshman Micah Beyer and junior Eric Diomartich, each pitched wins for the Eagles. Defensively, Biola only committed one error in the series and stranded 12 of Jessup’s runners. On the offensive front, the Eagles got 26 hits for 18 runs, while Jessup only got 16 hits for a total of four runs.
In the first game of the series on Friday, the Eagles offense was not high powered, as the first five innings only yielded one run each. Those five runs proved enough to get them the victory, as Jessup stranded seven men on base and only scored two. For Biola, Swire and sophomore Jeremy Barth came up big, with Swire getting three hits out of his four at-bats and crossing home plate twice. Barth got on base two of his four at-bats and got two RBI’s with the other two. Picha threw seven innings, allowing seven hits but only two runs and earning his third win of the season, which moved his record as starting pitcher to 3-3 on the season.
Saturday was a good day to be a Biola baseball fan, as they put up two entertaining and fundamentally solid games. The first game of the day ended in a 9-0 shutout, as Beyer shut down the Warrior’s batters, whereas Biola’s hitters lit up Jessup’s pitchers. Swire, junior Julian Jarrard and seniors Rob Groeschell and Andy Smith all got two or more hits, with Smith scoring three runs in the highest run outing of the series.
The third and final game also was held on Saturday and the Eagles ended up winning by a score of 4-2 in a game that was more about pitching than hitting. Diomartich earned his first win of the season, pitching 5.1 innings, allowing only one hit and one run while throwing eight strikeouts. The junior’s pitching record now sits at 1-5 on the season. Groeschell, Jarrard, sophomore Jimmy Gallarda and junior Andres Rodriguez accounted for the Eagles four runs, with Rodriguez scoring in the third, Groeschell and Jarrard coming home in the fourth and Gallarda finishing up the Eagles scoring in the fifth. Jessup tried to fight back in the sixth, successfully scoring two runs, but the Eagles defense stood their ground and forced them off the field before the Warriors could do any more damage. Gallarda came in as the closer in the top of the seventh and finished off the series by striking out the first batter, forced the second to fly out, then struck out the third to end the game.
“That was the first sweep we’ve had in three years, so to get that under our belt felt great and we definitely plan on keeping it going into this weekend at Vanguard,” said Picha.
The Eagle’s next game is part of a road series against the Vanguard Lions this weekend, the first game starting on Friday, Mar. 13 at 2 p.m.
