Allen Boyer hammered a pair of homeruns and drove in four as three seed PLNU defeated 2-seed Fresno Pacific 12-5 Tuesday afternoon in the winner's bracket game of the GSAC tournament. The Sea Lions are now 2-0 in the postseason and will meet top-seed California Baptist Wednesday at 9:00 am. The winner of that game advances to Thursday's championship. The Lancers are also unbeaten in tournament play. CBU crushed Vanguard 26-10 earlier Tuesday.
FPU drops into the loser's bracket and will take on The Master's in an elimination game noon Wednesday. The winner of that contest plays the loser of the PLNU/CBU game at 3:00 pm.
Boyer did it all for the Sea Lions on Tuesday. The All-GSAC junior went 3-for-6 at the plate and made some highlight catches in his centerfield position.
PLNU was down 1-0 early on, however. The Sea Lions broke out in the third by pushing seven runs across the plate to take a 7-1 lead.
Alex Cameron started things off with a double and scored on a single by
Tyler Kuehl. Later a Sunbird error and a base-loaded walk to
Jack Diamond put Point Loma up by two. Boyer capped the rally with a three-run homer.
FPU sliced into PLNU's lead with two runs in the fourth and another in the fifth. But the Sea Lions regained momentum in the sixth on Boyer's solo shot, his 16th of the year. Cameron added a RBI double in the seventh. A three-run ninth, highlighted by a two-run bomb by
Jeff Fox, iced the PLNU win.
Sea Lion starter
Brandon Dixon improved to 9-0 on the year. The senior lefty went six innings in which he allowed three earned runs on seven hits. Dixon fanned seven Sunbirds and hit three others.
Maurice Wilhelm closed out the tournament tilt with three solid frames. Wilhelm surrendered just one run and struck out five en route to his second save of the season.
FPU (31-14) employed four pitchers on the day, none that left the mound unscathed. Sunbird starter David Hawes fell to 4-5 after yielding seven runs in a 2.2 inning start.
Point Loma pounded out 17 hits. Kuehl went 4-for-6, Cameron was 3-for-5 with Fox,
Rashad Taylor and
Wes Kartch each with two hits.
California Baptist (43-12), the third-ranked team in the NAIA, swept four games from the Sea Lions to end the regular season. No. 18-ranked PLNU will try to get some measure of revenge on Wednesday.