NEWBERG, Ore. – Pacific Lutheran rallied from a deficit to beat George Fox, 6-5, in the second game of a Northwest Conference baseball doubleheader Saturday after the hosts topped the Lutes, 10-5, in the opening game at Morse Field.

Following the doubleheader split, the Lutes are now 18-12 overall and 8-9 in the conference, while George Fox is 23-9 and 16-4.

Game One – George Fox 10, PLU 5

Josh Rapacz had four of his team's 13 hits in support of Clay Gartner's complete-game performance. Timothy Williams had a pair of doubles and drove in four runs and Derek Dixon had two hits, two runs scored and two runs batted in for the Bruins.

George Fox scored three runs in the first against PLU starter Max Beatty, who ended up allowing six earned run on nine hits in five innings of work. Beatty struck out six and walked one.

The Lutes scored a run in the top of the second, but the Bruins played add on and led 10-1 entering the top of the ninth. Pacific Lutheran got its four runs in the ninth on four hits, including RBI singles from Drew Oord and Carson McCord with a two-run double by Clay Trushinsky sandwiched in between.

Oord continued his hot hitting of late, going 3-for-4 with two runs scored, while Trushinsky was 2-for-4 with three RBI.

Game Two – PLU 6, George Fox 5

PLU scored four runs on four hits and a George Fox error in the top of the sixth inning, rallying from a 4-2 deficit. With the first two batters retired on a ground out and strike out, the Lutes started their rally on back-to-back singles by Jacob Olsufka and Chris Bishop, the eight and nine hitters in the batting order. A Bruins error on a ground ball by Nicholas Hall kept the rally alive, and Trushinsky drew a bases-loaded walk to score the first run. Curtis Wildung followed with a two-run single through the middle of the infield, and Oord drove in the fourth run with a single to left field.

The Bruins got a run back in the bottom of the seventh before PLU closer AJ Konopaski ended the rally by getting the final two outs with the tying run on second base. With runners on second and third in the eighth, Konopaski recorded an inning-ending strikeout, and he then worked a 1-2-3 ninth inning for his fourth save of the season.

George Fox scored single runs in each of the first four innings against PLU starter and winning pitcher Collin Nilson, while the Lutes tallied a pair in the second on three hits, again all of that coming with two outs and aided by a Bruins error. Hall and Trushinsky had run-scoring singles during the frame.

Nilson ended up going 6 1/3 innings, allowing five runs on 12 hits while walking four and striking out one. The Bruins, who had 14 hits in the game, ended up leaving 14 runners on the base paths.

PLU finished with 13 hits including four more by Oord and two apiece from Hall, Wildung, Olsufka and Bishop. Both Trushinsky and Wildung drove in two runs and Olsufka and Bishop scored two.

The two teams conclude their three-game conference series with a single nine-inning game starting at noon on Sunday.

- PLU -