IRVINE, Calif. – Biola won the 2021 NCAA West Regional with a 2-1 win over No. 1 seed Concordia on Saturday after Concordia had won 3-2 in the first game to force a winner-take-all championship between the top-2 seeds in the region. Biola will advance to the NCAA Division II National Championships in Denver, Colorado to compete for the national title.
 
Concordia wraps up its season as the team with the best winning percentage in the entire West Region, and a regional runner up after winning the PacWest SoCal Pod and the PacWest AQ Pod Series. Biola advances with its win to play in Denver, Colorado, in the National Championships, which features the eight regional champions across NCAA Division II.
 
“I tell the girls all the time that even if you don’t see the harvest, that you’re planting the seeds for the people that come after you,” Biola head caoch Nikki Udria said, “so I want to just say thank you to the people who came before me and to the girls for trusting in me. I’m really proud of them.
 
Biola took its first loss of the tournament when Concordia earned a 3-2 win for Concordia’s fourth must-win victory in a row, putting both teams one win away from the regional title. Concordia then led 1-0 going into the sixth inning of the second game, and Haley Martinez started the inning with a pinch-hit single to second base.
 
Abie Nowak moved Martinez into scoring position with a sacrifice bunt before Kayla Neff was intentionally walked. Raylene Roybal did not allow any earned runs in her first start as pitcher of the tournament, and she helped herself out by hitting the ball on the left side of the infield causing. A throwing error allowed Nowak to score and Neff to advance to third base, tying the game.
 
Then Kylie Velasco came through with the go-ahead hit, driving the ball back up the middle for a base hit that Neff to cross home plate for a 2-1 lead. Roybal then stepped back in the circle, looking to record the final six outs of the game to win the tournament.
 
Roybal got two groundouts and her first strikeout of the game to get through the bottom of the sixth. Then in the bottom of the seventh, Roybal retired the side in order with a grounder hit to Ruth Munoz resulting in the final out of the game. Munoz fired the ball to Nowak, sending the dug out running onto the field to celebrate the regional title in the middle of the infield.
 
“I was just thinking ‘me and my catcher’ and I was focused on hitting my locations,” Roybal said. “We knew how good of a hitting team they were, and I knew I had to hit the corners and trust my defense behind me.”
 
Roybal allowed just four hits and no earned runs eighth win of the season. For Roybal, it was her first pitching appearance in nearly a month. Her last outing of the regular season was also at Concordia, where she gave up three runs and was taken out of the game before recording an out. She had to wait 28 days to put that memory behind her, and she did just that with her fifth complete game of the season and third with no runs allowed.
 
“We’re both two great ball clubs,” Udria said. “We’ve beaten each other up all year. Credit to them for the amazing season they have had. We knew it wasn’t going to be easy.”
 
In the first game of the day, Concordia rushed to a 2-0 lead with an RBI-triple by PacWest Player of the Year McKinsey Thorpe followed by a sacrifice fly from Missy Nemeth for the first two runs of the game. Concordia added another run in the fourth inning, when Nemeth hit a solo shot over centerfield.
 
PacWest Pitcher of the Year Callie Nunes finished the job from there in the final outing of her historic career at Concordia. Nunes struck out two batters in the complete game and allowed only one earned run on four hits. Nunes got Concordia out of two bases-loaded jams in the sixth and seventh innings to preserve a one-run lead and give Concordia its fourth win in a row. It was the 77th win of her career to go along with her 1.21 ERA and 717 strikeouts for the three-time PacWest Pitcher of the Year.
 
Concordia and Biola faced each other a total of 14 times this season. Biola won the season series 8-6, and Concordia won the PacWest SoCal Pod. Biola’s experience against its nationally-ranked opponent throughout the season should prepare the Eagles well for their trip to the national championships.
 
“It’s difficult to see such a good team like Concordia go,” Udria said. “They deserved just as much as we did to be there. I feel very well equipped to go to Denver and make a statement for the PacWest, and represent our conference well. I do think we have one of the best conferences in Division II and that we struggle all year against each other, and beat each other up so that we can represent our conference well, and hopefully Biola does that this year.”