PORTLAND, Ore. – The Portland Pilots bounced back from their series-opening loss against the Loyola Marymount Lions with an 9-1 victory in Game Two. The win puts the Pilots at 17-17 this season and 9-5 in conference play.

The Pilots' pitching staff was much stronger than in the series opener, holding the Lions to one run on six hits. Brad McVay earned his fifth win of the year with a solid start, striking out seven in six innings of work.

Portland also had a solid outing offensively with nine runs off 12 hits. They hit two homers on the day, the first coming from Ben Patacsil in the first inning and the second coming from Sam Brown in the third inning. Brown (2-for-4) was one of three batters to earn multiple hits on the day for the Pilots, with Jake Holcroft going 3-for-5 and Jake Tsukada batting 2-for-4 at the plate.

The bats were going early for Portland, with the Pilots racking up five runs and nine hits in the first four innings. Patacsil got things started with his two-run homer in the bottom of the first. The freshman hit a moonshot over the wall in left-center field for his third dinger of the season, making it 2-0 Portland.

Portland added a run in the third inning off a first-pitch solo homer from Brown. The homer was Brown's fourth of the season, tied for the most of any Pilot this year. Portland added two more runs in the fourth off an RBI double from Briley Knight and an RBI single from Jake Holcroft to make it 5-0 Pilots.

LMU added one run in the top of the sixth off after McVay hit Andrew Cargin with a pitch, but that would be the only time a Lion made it back home. The Pilots secured their victory by adding four insurance runs in the bottom of the eighth to take an eight-run lead. Jacob Dobmeier held off LMU on the mound to keep it at 9-1 Portland.

The Pilots and Lions will play their rubber match tomorrow at noon. Live stats and video will be available at PortlandPilots.com.