In a game that had ebb and flow aplenty, Point Loma Nazarene University had the final answer in taking a 14-12 win in a NAIA Opening Round Baseball Championship game against host Fresno Pacific at the FPU Diamond on Tuesday afternoon.
 
With the victory, the Sea Lions advance to Wednesday's 3 p.m.  winner's bracket contest in this five-team double-elimination tournament. They will play the winner of tonight's contest between #1 seed British Columbia and Houston-Victoria.

The meeting between Golden State Athletic Conference rivals was the seventh this season, and featured 40 hits and 26 runs. Point Loma has now won five of the seven match-ups between the two in 2010. PLNU improved to 36-18-1 on the season, while Fresno Pacific is now 35-16.

“It was another wild, typical game between two teams that are pretty familiar with each other,” Schaefer said. “I was proud of the way we kept answering them. This puts us in a good position, but we have a lot of work yet to do.”

Wes Kartch, Jack Diamond and Tyler Kuehl had three hits each for PLNU, and Kartch drove in three runs with a home run and a double. The Sea Lions laced out 18 hits, but had to survive 22 base knocks by FPU, including four by first baseman Case Rigby.

Point Loma trailed only once in the game, 1-0 in the second inning. But nearly every outburst they made after that was matched by the hosts, including a three-run rally in the ninth that raised the blood pressure of PLNU head coach Joe Schaefer.

The Sunbirds struck first against Sea Lion starter Steven Winnick with a single run in the second inning, but the Sea Lions answered in the bottom half with a two-run home run off the bat of Kartch. Kartch would later add an RBI-double to help fuel a four-run third inning to put his squad up 6-1. Kuehl started the rally with a two-bagger and the Sea Lions would get run-scoring singles from Jeff Fox and Diamond and a sacrifice fly off the bat of Winnick.

Host Fresno Pacific would claw back with an unearned run in the fourth inning and would get two more in the fifth to make the count 6-4. PLNU pieced together an insurance run in the bottom of the fifth (7-4), but the hosts would rally again in the top of the sixth to chase Winnick off the mound. Four hits led to a pair of Sunbird runs, but the potential tying run was thrown out at the plate by centerfielder Allen Boyer (7-6).

PLNU would put some distance between themselves and their hosts in the sixth inning with five runs, all coming after two outs were already in the books. The Sea Lions manufactured that outburst with three hits, two walks, two hit batters and two run-scoring wild pitches. FPU then cut the lead to four (12-8) via a two-run shot by Dane McLaughlin, but Point Loma answered with another counter in the seventh (13-8).

Each team would score in the eighth to move the scoreboard to 14-9, and the Sea Lions needed just three more outs to seal the deal. But as was the case all afternoon, easier said than done.  Four hits and three runs later, the Sunbirds sent the tying run to the plate before Robbie Ross came into the contest to induce a ground ball for the final out of the game.

Winnick improved to 9-3 on the season though the senior was scored upon six times (four earned) in five innings of work. Josh Dexheimer, Adam Herter and Maurice Wilhelm were all used out of the pen before Ross entered, earning his first save.

-Russ Blunck