IRVINE, Calif. – The Concordia University Irvine baseball team started the series against Biola Friday as they have only two more series remaining in the season. The Golden Eagles split on the day and a walk-off grand slam from
Nathan Benefeito to earn the second game win.
CUI 4, BU 6
Freshman
Josh Pugh started on the bump for the Golden Eagles and threw six innings allowing nine hits while striking out seven.
Mason Metcalfe came into the game to relieve Pugh and pitched the remaining three innings and had three strikeouts.
Biola struck first on the board taking a 2-0 lead over the Golden Eagles from two singles.
Michael Dixon hit a sacrifice fly to bring home
Jordan Bolden to cut the deficit in half. The Green and Gold continued momentum in the fourth scoring three unearned runs and taking a 4-2 lead. Biola scored four runs off two doubles to take game one by a close 6-4.
CUI 13, BU 12
Delgado had a career-high of four RBIs while Benefeito hits his second grand slam of the season. Dixon went three-for-three and catcher
Owen Gott contributed going three-for-four.
Two back-to-back hits from Gott and
Vito Fowler started the bottom of the second inning for the Golden Eagles. A sacrifice fly and hit from
Derek Delgado and
Landry Spitler brought in two RBIs. Delgado hit an RBI single to take a 3-0 lead. Biola answered back in the fifth to score seven runs.
Gott had an RBI single and Delgado came up with a two RBI single to get things going in the fifth. In the bottom of the sixth, the Golden Eagles were down 6-9 and three batters
Jake Schulz, Bolden, and Benefeito walked to load the bases. Schulz and Benefeito scored from a wild pitch from BU with RBI single from Dixon tied the score with nine in each frame.
In the seventh Biola came out to score another three runs taking a 12-9 lead and the Golden Eagles were headed into their last inning. Fowler started things off being walked along with Delgado and Spitler being hit by pitch loading the bases yet again. Benefeito was up with two outs and crushed a walk-off grand slam to win 13-12.
Brett Finnel started on the mound and went four innings striking out five and allowing five runs.
Jake McBride and
Tristan Perrin came into the game each allowed two runs.
Colton Bulger came in to pitch the last 1.1 innings and picked up his first win.
The Golden Eagles will finish the series on the road against Biola on Saturday Apr. 22 with start times at 12 and 3 p.m.
To see the full CUI baseball schedule click
HERE.
