Baseball extended its winning streak to 14 while Men’s and Women’s Tennis picked up wins this week to extend their winning streaks.
Baseball
Azusa Pacific has been on a roll, winning every game in March and picking up their fourth series sweep of the season after sweeping Concordia Irvine 3-0 in the series this past week.
They currently hold a 20-10 overall record and are 9-3 in Conference. The Cougars are also thriving on the road as they have a 15-2 record for away games.
On Friday, APU picked up their first win of the series with a 3-0 victory. A.J. Woodall received the win by holding the Eagles scoreless through seven innings. He struck out a season high nine batters and allowed no walks—a season low.
Hayden Merda completed his fourth save of the season and threw four strikeouts, allowing zero runs from the Eagles.
Omar Lopez, who recently received PacWest Player of the Week recognition, broke the game open with a solo home run in the seventh. The Cougars added on two more runs by a wild pitch in the seventh then an RBI single by Tido Robles.
In the first game of Saturday’s doubleheader, David Hays collected the 1-0 win with six strikeouts aided by four from Declan Kearney to hold the Eagles scoreless once again. This was Kearney’s fourth save of the season.
Offensively, Aaron Roose hit a two-out RBI single to bring Casey Dykstra home for the one run of the game.
In the second game of the day, the team picked up a 5-3 win to close out the series.
Isaac Mendez delivered five strikeouts in five innings before Brenden Dixon relieved him for an inning—throwing a strikeout and collecting the win. Casey Dykstra entered the game and picked up his second save of the season.
To start the game, the Cougars scored off a fielding error followed up by a pop fly from Brett Soria to put them up 2-0 in the second. Although Concordia tied up the game in the sixth, Roose delivered another RBI hit to score Soria followed by a two-run homer from Tido Robles to give the Cougars the lead for the remainder of the game. This was Robles’ ninth home run of the season and he also leads the team in RBI’s with 30 total.
APU’s fourteen game winning streak is the team’s longest streak since the 2019 season where the Cougars started with a 16-0 streak. They will travel to Fresno Pacific next and kick off the four-game series on Friday in Fresno.
Men’s Tennis
After picking up wins against Point Loma and Concordia this weekend, APU Men’s Tennis—currently ranked nationally as No.16—extended their winning streak to seven.
Their overall record now stands at 14-4 overall and they hold a 10-3 home record.
The No. 28 ranked duo of Leyton Bohren and Ryan Nuno clinched both doubles points for Azusa Pacific after winning their match 6-3 on Friday versus Concordia and 7-6 (7-5) on Saturday against Point Loma.
The duo of Elias Emilio Walter and Miha Velicki also picked up two wins this weekend with a 6-1 victory followed by a 6-0 sweep the following day.
On Friday, the Cougars gathered up two more points in straight sets between Sam Sippel (7-5, 6-0) and Elias Emilio Walter (6-1, 6-1).
After Concordia collected the next Singles point, No. 9 ranked Nuno responded with a win in the third set (6-2, 4-6, 6-4) to secure the victory for the Cougars.
Concordia tallied on one more point before Bohren closed the game with the final point of the match in another three set victory (6-2, 5-7, 7-6 (7-3)).
The following day, the Cougars won every set across all six players in singles.
Walter quickly took down his opponent 6-0, 6-3 and now holds a singles record of 11-5.
Following Walter in straight sets were Sippel (6-4, 6-4), who also moved to an 11-5 overall record, and Velicki (6-4, 6-2) who improved to 10-6 this season. Nuno captured the victory over yet another nationally ranked opponent (6-4, 6-4) to extend his Singles record to 11-4.
Bohren held it down with a straight set win followed by Ivan Hornung who captured the last point of the match after a 7-6 tiebreaker (9-7) followed by a 6-2 second set.
The Cougars will play two more games before heading into the PacWest Tournament in Arizona.
Women’s Tennis
The No. 22 ranked APU Tennis delivered back to back 7-0 sweeps to Concordia on Thursday followed by Point Loma on Saturday.
They advance to a 13-6 overall record with a five game winning streak after picking up their sixth sweep of the season.
The duo of Elenora Liga and Madison Kane delivered two wins in Doubles with a 6-2 and 6-0 win at Court No. 1.
On Thursday Audrey Stewart and April Wong picked up the 6-3 win then it was Katherine Nguyen and Carolyn Brooner who picked up the 6-2 win on Saturday.
Azusa Pacific swept all twelve singles matches between the two days.
Highlighting the week was Liga, who is ranked No. 4 in the nation. She improved her record to 17-1 in two straight set victories (6-0, 6-0 and 6-2, 7-5) at Court No. 1.
Holding it down all season at Court No. 2 is Kane who improved to an 11-3 Singles record with straight sets as well (6-4, 7-5 and 6-3, 6-3).
Wong also picked up two wins this week with 6-0, 6-1 and 6-3, 6-2 victories on Court No. 3.
The Cougars will face off against Cal State Los Angeles next Wednesday.