AZUSA, Calif. -- A 5-4 defeat in the opening game of Tuesday's doubleheader with Point Loma cast an ominous shadow over Azusa Pacific's hopes of defending its Pacific West Conference title, but the No. 3-ranked Cougars stormed back with a 10-5 win in the nightcap to set up a winner-take-all clash in the regular-season finale for both teams Wednesday afternoon.

Point Loma extended its winning streak to 16 games with the opening-game win, scoring the game-winner in the top of the eighth inning after Azusa Pacific erased all of the Sea Lions' early 4-0 lead. In the nightcap, the Cougars' revamped lineup erupted for six runs in the fifth inning of the seven-inning contest, providing valuable insurance for Point Loma's five-run answer in the top of the sixth.

Grant Gamble homered in both games, hitting a two-run shot in the opener to pull the Cougars within 4-3 before adding a fourth-inning opposite-field solo home run in the fourth inning of the nightcap to give Azusa Pacific a 3-0 edge.

With the split, Azusa Pacific and Point Loma remain locked in a virtual tie for the PacWest lead heading into Wednesday's series finale. The Cougars are now 38-9 overall and 28-9 in the PacWest, while PLNU is now 33-15 overall, 29-10 PacWest.

What It Means: Wednesday's regular-season finale is for all the marbles, with the winner of the final regular-season contest also claiming the 2018 Pacific West Conference baseball championship. Based on the first two sets of NCAA Division II regional rankings, both teams are almost certainly postseason-bound when the final six-team regional tournament field is announced Sunday night.

How It Happened (Game 1): For the second straight game, Point Loma jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the top of the first inning. Two soft singles to start the game gave PLNU a pair of early baserunners, and a wild pitch, hit batsman, and error produced the Sea Lions' first run of the game. Justin Ledgerwood added a two-run, two-out single to extend the lead to 3-0. Micah Pries led off the third inning with a solo home run to right field, his 10th home run this season, to extend the lead to 4-0.

After that, Layne Henderson got into a groove as he retired 15 of 16 batters after the home run, including 13 consecutive at one point. As Henderson churned through the Sea Lions' lineup, Justin Gomez registered Azusa Pacific's first hit off PLNU starter Trevor Abshire with an RBI double to left-center, and the Cougars added three more in the sixth on Gamble's two-run home run and another Gomez RBI double which tied the game at 4-4.

A leadoff single for Point Loma in the top of the eighth inning led to a go-ahead run on a fielder's choice grounder deep in the hole at shortstop, where Mychael Goudreau's only play with the bases loaded was a force out at third as the runner from third scored to give PLNU a 5-4 edge. The Cougars left runners on base in each of the final three innings as Point Loma held on to win.

Henderson scattered five runs (three earned) on five hits with one walk and seven strikeouts in 7.1 innings. Abshire left after giving up the tying run, and four Point Loma relievers combined for 3.2 innings of scoreless relief. John Balliet picked up his seventh save of the season with 1.1 innings of shutout relief.

How It Happened (Game 2): A new-look batting lineup with regular leadoff hitter Goudreau dropping to eighth resulted in some early offense as Tim Lichty gave Azusa Pacific its first lead in the series with a first-inning RBI single in the seven-inning second game of the doubleheader. Sean Aspinall extended the lead to 2-0 with a third-inning solo home run, and Gamble provided a solo shot in the fourth to push the lead to 3-0.

In the bottom of the fifth, Gomez hit a leadoff single and scored on Austin Russ' two-run home run to right field. Goudreau added a two-run, two-out double later in a six-run fifth, which gave the Cougars a 9-0 lead. After Dillon Miyashiro fired five scoreless innings, Point Loma rallied for five runs in the sixth. Back-to-back fifth-inning home runs from Tyler Flores and Adrian Collazo closed the gap to 9-5 before reliever Hayden Jorgenson limited the damage to those five sixth-inning runs by retiring the final five PLNU hitters.

Inside The Box Score: Goudreau was 1-for-4 in each game, extending a streak of reaching base safely to 26 consecutive games… So far in the series, Gamble is 4-for-8 with a pair of walks while Lichty is now 3-for-6 with three walks through the first three games of the series… The teams are separated by one point of batting average over the first three games of the series, with Point Loma batting .267 as a team compared to Azusa Pacific batting .266.

What's Next: The four-game series concludes with a single game at 1 p.m. Wednesday afternoon, which will also wrap up the regular season for both teams. Another set of West Region rankings will be announced Wednesday, although none of the games from this week's four-game series will be included. This week's series will only impact the final set of rankings which are produced for the NCAA Division II Baseball National Championship selection and seeding.