(SAN DIEGO) No. 20 PLNU Baseball only needed to win one of two games on Saturday against Academy of Art to repeat as PacWest champions.
The Sea Lions won both.
After a 10-3 victory in game one clinched a second-straight conference title, Point Loma followed that up with a 5-2 win in game two to close out the regular season on an eight-game winning streak.
"In means everything," Head Coach
Justin James said of the PacWest title. "When I took over the job, winning the conference was one of the main priorities I wanted to bring to The Point. (Athletic Director) Ethan Hamilton has given me the resources and the support to do it and obviously it starts with the players. You have to have good players who buy into a system and they've done that at a very high level."
Point Loma, the preseason PacWest favorites to win the conference, ultimately backed up those predictions but overcame several obstacles along the way.
The Sea Lions had their conference-opening series with Fresno Pacific rained out before dropping three out of four games at Hawaii Hilo to start 1-3 in PacWest play.
PLNU then responded by winning 21 of its remaining 26 conference games, despite playing 10 games in nine days to finish the regular season.
"Baseball is hard and I don't think people realize how hard it is," James said. "When you look back on a year, there's always a series or two that just get a little weird. You don't know why that is and usually it's probably for the better so that you go through some adversity and have to find out what toughness really is. We believe that you can't be tough unless you go through some stuff."
Integral to Point Loma's strong finish to the season was the development of its pitching staff, which put together a streak of five-straight shutouts and 41.2 scoreless innings until ART U's three-run homer in the second inning of game one on Saturday.
"We expect our pitching staff to come in and keep growing," James said. "We ask a lot of them. We're very demanding of our pitchers, not only from a work ethic standpoint but also an execution standpoint. Some of these guys hadn't pitched a ton of innings before, so it was just a matter of getting the experience. They're fully bought-in now and it's been fun to watch."
After that early three-run home run by the Urban Knights, Point Loma's championship celebrations were momentarily put on hold, but it didn't take long for the Sea Lions to get going offensively themselves.
In the bottom of the second,
Hunter Otjen got one back with a triple down the right field line to score
David Garcia.
An inning later,
Jake Entrekin overturned PLNU's deficit with a three-run blast to right center to give Point Loma a one-run advantage.
The Urban Knights then loaded the bases in the top of the fourth with one out, before reliever
Matthew Schlesener got the Sea Lions out of the jam by striking out one and inducing a flyout to left to end the threat.
Connor Hill's opposite-field double to left in the bottom of the fourth put PLNU ahead, 5-3, before the Sea Lions' five-run sixth inning put the game out of reach.
Otjen led off the sixth with a solo blast, before
Jakob Christian hit a little league home run with the bases loaded to score four more. Christian singled to right to knock in two runners, but
Scott Anderson and Christian were both allowed to score as well after a pair of ART U throwing errors.
Otjen closed the door on the mound by pitching the final four innings in shutout fashion to clinch Point Loma's second-straight PacWest title.
ART U seemed to determine to spoil PLNU's conference championship celebrations by leading for much of game two.
A solo homer in the top of the third gave the Urban Knights an early lead, before they scored on a passed ball the following inning to double their advantage.
But as the Sea Lions have seemingly done so often this season, they scored late to come back and win.
With the bases loaded in the bottom of the sixth,
Connor Hill's dribbler was fielded by the pitcher, whose throw home was not in time, allowing PLNU to score its first run of the ballgame.
Owen May followed that up with a two-RBI single to give Point Loma its first lead. The Sea Lions then extended their advantage further on Christian's run-scoring single and Entrekin's RBI-triple down the right field line.
"In big moments, big players get big hits," James said. "It also goes back to the pitching as well. The pitching is allowing for the offense to come up with those opportunities. We work on it like crazy. They put into practice what they're taught and they usually do a pretty good job with it."
Cole Hillier then pitched a 1-2-3 top of the seventh to complete PLNU's fourth series sweep of the season.
As PacWest regular season champions, Point Loma (34-12 overall, 22-8 PacWest) earns the No. 1 seed in the first-ever PacWest Championships, set to take place May 10-12 in Fresno.
PLNU will play in the first game of the double-elimination tournament on May 10 at noon against the fourth seed.
