LA MIRADA, Calif.- The Fresno Pacific Sunbirds (12-15 overall, 2-3 WWPA) lost a back-and-forth match 9-7 on the road to the Biola University Eagles (14-14 overall, 5-1 WWPA) Saturday afternoon at the Splash Aquatic Center.
 
The match began in a sluggish start with both teams struggling to score within the first six minutes of the first period.
 
The first goal of game finally came in the 3-minute mark with Biola's Kourtney Pyle scoring to end the drought.
 
The scoring continued for the Eagles into the second period with 2 more unanswered goals.
 
The Sunbirds finally got on the board with a goal off the arm of Tatum Benson in the 4:20 mark of the 2nd period.
 
Biola quickly answered back scoring 2 goals off an exclusion and a penalty in less than one minute.
 
Fresno Pacific headed into halftime down 5-1 looking for a way to end their scoring troubles.
 
"We had a slow first half," Fresno Pacific head coach Bryan Suhovy said. "We took some timid shots, but in the second half we came out with confidence and shot hard. We just had too big of a gap to recover."
 
Early in the second half, the Sunbirds finally broke through again with Natalie Kisling scoring after an exclusion in the 5^th minute.
 
The Eagles, however, countered with another goal to extend the lead 6-2.
 
In less than 15 seconds, Rosemary Chapman added to the scoring bringing the Sunbirds within 2.
 
The Sunbirds managed to hang tough defensively for 4 minutes of the 3^rd quarter until Biola's Marija Mijuskovic scored her second goal of the day to bring the Eagles lead back to 3.


The third period ended with a thrilling goal by Benson with only one second left on the clock.
 
The back-and-forth scoring would continue into the 4^th and final period.
 
Kisling would tally her second goal of the game in the sixth minute. Unfortunately, the Eagles would swim down and score right back keeping their lead.
 
The game slowed to a defensive stalemate with both goalies making save after save.
 
The Sunbirds would finally breakthrough in the last minute with consecutive goals by Regan Azevedo and Benson.
The goals would bring the Sunbirds back within one, but Biola's Lizzy Birch would issue the heartbreaking goal ending their hopes of the comeback.
 
Despite Benson's hat trick the Sunbirds could not overcome the dominant defense of Biola falling 9-7.
 
The Sunbirds as a team ended the day with 32 shots, 7 assists and 9 steals. Sunbird goalie Katie Whittingham tallied over 14 saves on the Eagles 35 shot attempts.
 
"The girls played hard from start to finish," Suhovy added. "I'm proud of where we are. We have another big one next week to prepare for now."
 
Fresno Pacific will travel to Hayward on April 22 for their final game of the regular season for a in-conference match up with the East Bay Pioneers.
 
 
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