The Sunbirds split a pair of matches on the opening day of the 2013 Gary Troyer Memorial Invitational.

Fresno Pacific earned a hard-fought win in their first match with a 11-9 victory over Notre Dame College (OH). The Sunbirds used a strong fourth quarter and a blanaced offense to earn their sixth win of the season.

"We showed a lot of growth against Notre Dame, and controlled the pace of the game," said head coach Bryan Suhovy. "We played balanced, structured and consistent and that was our goal."

The afternoon session pitted the nations No. 8 team in Loyola Marymount. The Lions overwhelmed the Sunbirds scoring the first six goals of the match in the first quarter. Daniel Seymour got FPU on the board with a goal in the second quarter. Seymour and Samson each scored twice in the loss 18-6 loss.

"Against LMU we came out uneasy and missed a lot of great set up shots," said Suhovy. "I was happy with what we were doing, we just couldn't finish our chances. It was a great experience against one of the top-ranked teams, and our freshmen got a lot of minutes and experience. Overall it was a good day and now we get ready for tomorrow.

Fresno Pacific will close out the invitational tomorrow against No. 19 George Washington and Pomona-Pitzer. The matches are set to begin at 9 a.m. and 2:20 p.m.