By Jacob Norling
February 28, 2026
 
(SANTA BARBARA, Calif.) Westmont Baseball (11-4, 8-4 PacWest) had to settle for a split against the Biola Eagles (11-9 7-5) this weekend, after a bit of a repeat of Friday's doubleheader. Like the day prior, the Warriors took game one on Saturday and had a late lead in game two. Much like the day before though, Westmont allowed Biola to linger for far too long before a late Eagles rally left the Warriors with a bittersweet series split.
 
In game one the story of the day was Westmont starter Joey Rico (2-1), who earned the win after throwing six and two-thirds innings of one-run ball. Rico, who at one point retired 18 in a row, surrendered only three hits and one earned run while striking out seven on the day. Rico, who also serves as the DH on his start days, also had two hits in four at-bats. In fact, the junior opened up the scoring in the fourth with an RBI single to right, which ultimately led to a four-run inning.
 
The biggest hit of the inning, and debatably the game for the Warriors, came off of the bat of freshman Jarrett Kozma with two outs in the inning and runners at second and third. The first-year's liner that landed on a hop to the Biola left fielder allowed both Rico and Griffin Brown to come home, giving Rico all the support he would end up needing. It was Kozma's first hit in a Westmont uniform.
 
The Warriors would add two more an inning later on a peculiar decision by the Biola catcher, to say the least. With Rolen Reyes off of second and Grant Yzermans off of first, the Biola backstop attempted to back-pick Yzermans at first. Yzermans beat the throw back to the bag with relative ease, but the throw also beat Biola's first baseman who never truly came close to entering the picture.
 
Instead of finding a glove at the first base bag, the throw found the right field corner, as the ball was hurled down the line and rolled all the way to the base of the foul pole. Both runners would come all the way around to score without a throw.
 
Westmont led 6-0 after five, and eventually Brandon Tatch came on and got the final seven outs of Westmont's 7-2 victory.
 
In game two, a sac fly, an RBI groundout, and a successful safety squeeze had the Warriors up 3-0 as the seven-inning game entered the fifth. Biola got one back in the fifth, but in the bottom half, Westmont scored on a hit-by-pitch and two wild pitches to enter the sixth inning leading 6-1. The Warriors appeared to be headed towards a doubleheader sweep and a series win at that point with just six outs to go, but then the nightmare that turned out to be the top of the sixth came into play.
 
In an inning that featured three pitching changes, two errors, two walks, a hit batsmen, and three hits by the Eagles, Biola spun a 6-1 deficit into an 8-6 lead. After a game-tying bases loaded walk, the Warriors were still just one strike away from surviving the sixth and heading back into the dugout in a tie game. On a two-strike fastball that was both high and outside of the strike zone, Biola's Cole Thomson stuck his bat out and floated a ball into no man's land down the left line. When it found grass, the sixth and seventh runs of the inning came across for a Biola team that had stunned the Warriors for the second day in a row.
 
Making this one sting even more than yesterday, however, was the fact that Westmont flirted with stealing it right back. In the bottom of the seventh with the Warriors trailing 9-7, a two-out rally allowed the Warriors to load the bases for their leadoff hitter, Grant Yzermans. The junior grounded a ball towards the hole on the right side of the infield, but Biola's first baseman Oscar Knapp was playing well off the bag anticipating this exact scenario. The lone man on the right side of the infield shuffled to his right, gloved the ball, and delivered a strike of an underhand toss to the pitcher that beat Yzermans in a foot race to the bag.
 
The Eagles poured out of their dugout in a state of euphoria, feeling much better about the split than their Westmont counterparts. For the Eagles, it was a series that rewarded the club's collective resilience in the late innings. For the Warriors, the club was left to wonder what might have been had they tacked on back in game two on Friday, or if they could have escaped the sixth any earlier than they did in game four on Saturday.  
 
With a long season still ahead, the Warriors will carry their 8-4 PacWest record into a four-game series next weekend, when the Warriors host the Fresno Pacific Sunbirds at Russ Carr Field.