FRESNO, Calif.-Late surges led to 39 total goals in two games including a thrilling 29-25 overtime victory for the Fresno Pacific Sunbirds (2-6 overall) against the Westcliff Knights (5-6 overall) as they bounced back after a morning loss to the UC Merced Bobcats Saturday at Clovis East Aquatics Center.

The 'Birds responded after a sluggish start to the day and overcame a number of ejections before outlasting the Knights.

FPU found itself in an early deficit against UC Merced, as the lone goal scorer in the first, Scott Tashima, fouled out by midway in the second.

The 'Birds found themselves down 6-2 at the half as William Green was the only FPU scorer in the second quarter.

The Sunbirds developed an offensive rhythm in the third quarter and scored four times. But UC Merced matched the scoring to hold a 10-6 lead into the fourth.

Fresno Pacific buckled down defensively and made it a one goal game, but ran out of time as the Bobcats ran out the clock to preserve the lead and secure the win.

The 'Birds capitalized on the goal scoring momentum in the afternoon tilt, pouring in six goals to take ahold of the lead.

By halftime, FPU's 10-9 practically equaled the entire output of their morning contest but the Sunbirds weren't done.

Westcliff would battle back themselves despite being down by as much as five goals, but they lost their goalie in the process after a game misconduct forced them to use field players in front of the cage for what was the final fourteen minutes of game time.

After Westcliff managed to take the lead in the offensive slugfest, Nikita Krastov tied it at 21 to force overtime.

In all, seven players were disqualified from action for either game misconduct or exceeding the number of ejections and the Sunbird's deep roster proved valuable as the Knights ran out of subs, and options.

Pietro Cattano came up back in the overtime period, scoring a pair of his 10 goals to keep it out of reach and grab the win for FPU.

The Sunbirds begin a road swing in Southern California over the next three weeks before returning to host Biola on October 13^th at Sunnyside Aquatics Center.

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