Photo by Caitlin Luquet
Photo by Caitlin Luquet

Softball

Cougars Upend Eagles, 3-2

No. 3 seed Azusa Pacific upsets No. 1 Biola to advance to Friday's championship round against Concordia

IRVINE—Every Cornerstone Cup match-up between Biola and Azusa Pacific is played with major importance, but none bigger than today.

Azusa Pacific edged top seed Biola 3-2 to advance to Friday’s PacWest Conference championship round against Concordia. The two squads will play at noon at on Friday. If APU wins, the two squads will play again 30 minutes afterwards for the PacWest’s automatic berth into next week’s NCAA playoffs.

Biola, the No. 1 seed and regular season PacWest champion, will now await the NCAA call on Sunday to see if their season will continue. Ranked No. 5 in this week’s poll, with eight teams qualifying, the Eagles would appear to be in a solid position.

Tonight’s game had the intensity of a Cornerstone Cup game between two rivals, but amplified.

Azusa Pacific got on the board first in the third inning on Julia Doan’s two-out home run. The Eagles answered in the bottom half after Jackie Ibarra singled and eventually came home on an error to tie the contest at 1-1.

The Cougars loaded the bases in the fourth but didn’t score, but did push across the go-ahead run in the fifth. Caitlin Decanio singled and Sierra Sandoval followed a few batters later with an RBI single. That bumped Biola starter Kayla Bousquette from the game, bringing in DJ Symons, who helped her team out of the jam.

Ava Hernandez, the APU starter, set Biola down in the fifth, but the game flipped back in the sixth when Kendall Nakano led off the inning with a rocket over the center field fence, her 16th home run of the year. That tied the game at 2-2, sending it to the seventh.

Dorn then went hero mode again with a lead off homer to send her team to a 3-2 lead. One half inning later, the Cougars could celebrate after Hernandez closed out the game for her 11th win of the year (11-6).

APU is now 3-2 this year against Biola and 31-21 overall. The conference champion Eagles are 38-19, awaiting the NCAA call this Sunday.

“It was special day, we really rose to the occasion,“ said Azusa Pacific head coach Carrie Webber. “Those are two very good teams battling it out. It was a lot of fun, stressful, but fun. It was great to see our team locked in and confident. We know we have to win two tomorrow, and we are excited for that challenge.”