HILLSBORO, Ore. — Dylan Wright delivered a pinch hit triple in the eighth inning and Kyler Knieriem spun six shutout innings in relief to give Pacific a 5-3 Northwest Conference baseball victory over Pacific Lutheran on Sunday night under the lights at Ron Tonkin Field.

The win gave the Boxers the three-game sweep of the No. 16/17 nationally ranked Lutes, as Pacific also won Saturday's doubleheader with 7-3 and 4-2 scores. With the victories, the Boxers are now 7-7 overall and 3-3 in NWC action. The Lutes dropped to 6-8 on the year and to 2-4 in conference play.

The game was played at the home of the Hillsboro Hops because of wet field conditions in Forest Grove at Chuck Bafaro Stadium.

This game had the markings of a run-fest early, as the Lutes scored in the first inning and added two more in the third after three walks and an RBI single by Brett Johnson. Meanwhile the Boxers pushed a couple of runners across the plate in the second thanks in part to a double by Tanner Mansell and a RBI base knock by Shane Suyama.

Boxer starting pitcher Eric Pursell exited in the third inning and in came Knieriem. The junior right-hander from John Day, Ore. proceeded to work out of a jam in the third, and then retired 15 of the next 17 batters that he faced. At one point, he recorded ten consecutive outs.

Meanwhile, the Boxers needed runs of their own, and they got one of them to tie the game in the fifth at 3-3. In that frame, Walker Olis led off with a bunt single, stole second base and came home on Kurtis Kloke's single. That score would hold until the fateful eighth stanza.

With one out in the eighth, Suyama blooped a double to right field, that found turf between a lunging first baseman, second baseman and sliding right fielder. With pinch runner Dante Filippini on second, Wright came off the cold bench to drill a ball into the left field gap and to the fence to easily score Filippini. Catcher Kane Ulrich followed with a perfectly executed squeeze bunt with Wright sprinting home to make the count 5-3.

Cody Ahlgrimm came on to relieve Knieriem. He retired the first two batters, but then got into a bit of trouble when he allowed a walk to Ben Welch and a single to pinch hitter Frank Airey. But he then induced a fly ball out of lead-off batter Connor Cantu to end the game.

Kloke, Suyama and Mansell each had a pair of hits for the Boxers. Knieriem went a full six innings, allowing only three hits, a walk and he fanned seven Lute batters to pick up his first win of the season (1-0).

Drew Oord had two of PLU's five hits on the evening.

Pacific will travel to Tacoma next weekend for a three-game series with Puget Sound. Saturday doubleheader begins at 11 a.m., and Sunday's single contest will start at noon.