FOREST GROVE, Ore. — The Pacific softball team waited most of the day to finally get on the field to finish a four-game series with Pacific Lutheran on Sunday. When the rain finally subsided, they made Boxer fans wait until the end of each drama-packed game to close out a pair of victories over the Lutes, 6-5 and 6-4.

The victories give Pacific a 11-4-1 overall mark and a 3-1 start in Northwest Conference play. The Lutes are now 9-5 on the year and 1-3 in the NWC.

Ashley Mitchell and Kylee Yamamoto provided the winning hits and Alyssa Burns picked up the pitching wins in both games for the surging Boxers.

In the first game, Pacific rallied from a run down in the bottom of the seventh to walk off with the win. Short at 5-4, the Boxers tied the game on Emily Tesdale's RBI single. With Kaitlynn Donaca on third base (she had an infield single earlier), Mitchell laced a single to right-center field to bring home Donaca with the winning score.

Earlier in the sixth, trailing 4-2, Pacific tied the game on Yamamoto's two-run blast to left field, but PLU answered with the go-ahead run in the top of the seventh, setting up Mitchell's walk-off hit.

The Boxers took advantage of six Lute errors in the game. Only Tesdale had more than one hit (two) for Pacific, who had seven in the game. Marissa Reichard, one day after throwing 198 pitches, went 5.1 innings tonight and allowed only three hits, but wasn't involved in the decision. Burns got the win in 1.2 innings of relief work.

In avoiding extra innings, the Boxers ended the contest with a win--something that didn't happen on Saturday when they went 14 innings in the series opener before losing 6-5 to the Lutes.

In Sunday's second game, the Boxers scored their runs in batches. In the second inning, they put a three-spot on the board thanks to a two-run double by Rachel Roberts and an RBI-single by Donaca. Two PLU errors would push another Pacific run across the plate to give the home team an early 3-0 lead.

But the Lutes would answer with four runs in the top half of the third, with Nichole Schroeder providing the big blow with a three-run double. That 4-3 lead would hold until the bottom of the fifth inning.

Mitchell would get things going again, this time starting the rally with a single. She would then score on Yamamoto's triple.  Yamamoto's at-bat packed plenty of drams as she fouled off five pitches in a nine-pitch at bat before delivering the blow. That tied the game at 4-4, and again, PLU's defense would let them down with two more errors in the inning, allowing the Boxers to score two more runs without the benefit of a hit.

24 hours after pitching a complete game shutout during a 7-0 win on Saturday, freshman Cassie Apple came out of the bullpen to pitch the final two inning to get the save. She didn't allow a hit and only walked one batter. Burns pitched the middle of the contest and got her second win of the day (2-1), pitching 2.2 scoreless innings.

Roberts was 2-for-4 with two RBI and Mitchell had two hits in the game as well.

The Boxers will travel to Tacoma next weekend to play Puget Sound in a pair of twinbills on Saturday and Sunday. Start time for both is noon.