PARKLAND – Pacific Lutheran broke a lengthy shutout streak for the George Fox pitching staff to win the opener 6-5, but the 19th-ranked Bruins bounced back to end the day with an 8-0 win as the teams split a Northwest Conference baseball doubleheader Saturday afternoon at PLU Field.

The Lutes' record goes to 17-13 overall and 9-7 in conference play, while George Fox goes to 24-7 overall and 14-6 in the NWC. The rubber game of the series is set to begin at 12 p.m. Sunday at PLU Field.

Saturday's opener began as an impressive pitchers' duel, pairing two of the top starters in the NWC with PLU's Trevor Lubking and GFU's Clay Gartner. Both made it through the first three innings without yielding a run, but trouble struck in the fourth inning.

George Fox struck first, as Josh Rapacz worked a walk to open the inning and scored on Derek Dixon's triple into the right-center gap. Dixon scored two batters later when Zac Israel's sacrifice fly made it 2-0 Bruins.

With George Fox nursing a 43-inning shutout streak and Gartner boasting an earned run average below two, that looked like it might be enough. At least it was until the bottom of the inning.

Collin Nilson began the bottom of the fourth with a double to left field and advanced to third on a groundout. He came in to score on a single by Kory Vanderstaay, snapping the GFU shutout streak. Tanner Williams followed with an infield single, and one out later Ben Welch tied the game with an RBI single up the middle. Alec Beal and Drew Oord added consecutive base hits to drive in two more, giving PLU a 4-2 lead and knocking Garnter out of the game after only 3.2 innings and nine hits allowed.

Connor Harris relieved Gartner and picked up the final out of the inning, and George Fox's top-ranked offense did not wait to strike back. A bunt single by Matthew Zeller started the top of the fifth, and after a walk to Danny Clifford, Dixon struck again with a two-RBI double to left-center to tie it up at 4-4.

The Lutes pushed back on top in the seventh inning, as Nilson and Vanderstaay each singled and Nicholas Hall grounded a clutch RBI single through the left side of the infield to make it 5-4. Lubking took a seat after seven innings, limiting George Fox to four runs on only three hits with nine strikeouts and five walks on 121 pitches. AJ Konopaski came in from the bullpen with a chance for a two-inning save that would tie the PLU single-season record. But George Fox had other plans.

With two outs in the eighth inning, Konopaski hit Zach Rapacz with a pitch and Israel followed with a double to deep center field to score the runner from first and tie the game yet again. The Lutes stranded two runners in the bottom of the eighth – the fifth time in the game that PLU stranded two runners on base – and Konopaski retired the side in order in the top of the ninth.

Pacific Lutheran had tallied 16 hits through the first eight innings, to only four for George Fox, but the Lutes had stranded 12 runners on base. Vanderstaay led off the bottom of the ninth with a single to right field, and Hall bunted him over to second. Landon Packard pinch hit and grounded a ball to second base, and a muffed scoop by Bruins' first baseman Dixon let the ball roll away just barely far enough for Vanderstaay to slide in safely at home with the winning run.

Konopaski picked up his first win of the season, striking out three while allowing one run on one hit in two innings pitched. Sean Eberhardt took the loss for George Fox, allowing only the unearned run on three hits in 2.0 innings. Oord finished the game with four singles, while Nilson cranked three doubles and Vanderstaay added three hits in the win.

Once the second game began, George Fox established quickly that it would go a bit differently from the first contest. Clifford powered an opposite-field solo home run in the top of the first, and Zach Rapacz hit a homer out to dead center field in the second to make it 2-0. The Lutes' best chance at getting back in the game fell apart in the bottom of the second, when Nilson walked and Wildung singled to put runners at the corners before GFU starter Ian Buckles struck out the next three batters to keep PLU scoreless.

PLU starter Christ Bishop yielded four earned runs on six hits in 6.1 innings, but Buckles shut out the PLU offense for eight innings, allowing only five hits and four walks to go with eight strikeouts on 112 pitches. The Bruins added a run in the sixth to make it 3-0, and Clifford broke it open in the seventh with his second home run of the day, a three-run shot to right-center field that cleared the fence just in front of the scoreboard. George Fox added two more runs in the top of the eighth and clinched the doubleheader split with the 8-0 win.