AZUSA, Calif.--It was a tough assignment, a winning season hanging in the balance, playing against the best team in the Pacific West Conference, maybe the best club in the NCAA West Region.

Azusa Pacific punched their ticket to next week's region tournament with four wins in the PacWest AQ Pod Series, including tonight's 9-2 win over the Vulcans. The Cougars, who outscored their opponents in the Pod Series 43-11, iimproved to 33-8 on the season. The Vulcans, who went 1-3 in the Series, fell one game short of the .500 mark on the season, finishing the 2021 year at 14-15.

UH Hilo had just four hits in the game against a Cougar committee of six pitchers, two of those hits off the bat of Lawson Faria. APU had eight hits, two from Nick Estrella who had a home run and drove in three.

The game was scoreless through the first two innings with Vulcan Christian DeJesus on the mound. DeJesus didn't allow a hit through two until Estrella hit a home run with a runner on in the third inning. Earlier, in the top of the third the Vulcans got on the board when Jaryn Kanbara singled as did Faria, and Kanbara would eventually score on Casey Yamauchi's ground ball. 

The Cougars added an unearned run in the fourth to make it 3-1, and then the flood gates opened in the fifth. APU rapped Vulcan relief pitching for five hits and six runs to put the game out of reach (9-1). UHH would add one more run in the sixth when Trey Yukumoto walked, Brett Komatsu singled and Yukumoto when soon score on an error.

But that would be it for the Vulcans, who didn't get a hit in the final three innings of the game.

DeJesus took the loss, despite not giving up an earned run in three innings of work. He allowed just one hit, walked three and fanned five. 

The Vulcans picked up their one win in the Pod Series on Friday night with come-from-behind 11-inning victory over Academy of Art, 9-8. 

The Saturday night game wraps up the 2021 sports season for the Vulcans, where all 12 programs played their shorter COVID seasons from January to May.