The Eagles cashed in on a valuable opportunity to move up in the Golden State Athletic Conference standings with their series win against the San Diego Christian College Hawks. Their 12-9 conference record puts Biola only a half game behind The Master’s College Mustangs, who are 14-10 and third in the conference standings.

Come back kids

“We knew they would be a fighting team, but we are too,” said Jimmy Gallarda, junior starting pitcher. “We knew they would come in giving it everything they had, but we have been playing so well that we did not pay too much attention to their game, but focused more on ours.”

Due to a pair of errors, the Eagles found themselves down 0-3 by the bottom of the fourth inning in the series opener. After junior first baseman Jimmy Gallarda hit his first home run of the season and put the Eagles on the board, Biola took the lead with back-to-back three-run innings in the sixth and seventh.

However, the Hawks managed to tie the game with a ninth inning grand slam, which sent the game into extra innings. Sophomore right-handed pitcher Daniel Jang eventually earned the win for the game by keeping the Hawks scoreless through four innings until junior second baseman JD Meyer hit a walk-off double in the bottom of the thirteenth.

Although they came out with the win, the Eagles committed five errors, all of which came from the infield, and were responsible for three of the Hawks’ runs.

Gallarda finds strike zone

The Eagles battled through a tough pitching duel to clinch the series after a 2-0 victory, led by Gallarda’s work on the mound. Neither team scored until the Eagles took the lead with an RBI single from junior catcher Rawley Hughes in the bottom of the fifth. Later in the inning senior leftfielder Aaron Chavez gave Biola an insurance run with a sacrifice fly, giving the Eagles a 2-0 lead.

Those two runs were enough for Gallarda, who led his team through seven innings and allowed only six hits and zero runs. His scoreless victory improved his record to 5-5.

Hits from Meyer, Gallarda and senior rightfielder Jeremy Barth in the bottom of the third put the Eagles up 4-3, after giving up three runs in the top of the second. Although the Hawks struck again with a run in the top of the fifth, senior third baseman Andres Rodriguez quickly regained the lead for the Eagles with an RBI single in the seventh inning.

Their lead was short lived, after the leadoff man reached first on an error, the Hawks regained the lead with another three-run inning off Jang in the eighth. Coming off his victory in the series opener, Jang dropped to 5-2 after receiving the loss for the game.

“Every win counts at this time of the year,” Gallarda said. “We have the hardest schedule the last three weeks of the season compared to SDCC. So if we want to go to the tournament we have to beat the best.”

The Eagles hope to stay in fourth as they take on Menlo College in the last home series of the season, starting on Friday, April 15 at 3 p.m.