Lopes respond to road loss with 4-1 home win vs. ASU
Grand Canyon is the in-state baseball champion of GCU Ballpark.
(Phoenix, AZ) GCU went from dramatic to emphatic against Arizona foes. After beating Arizona on a Channy Ortiz extra-inning, walkoff home run last week at GCU Ballpark, the Lopes were more thorough in dispatching Arizona State 4-1 on Wednesday night in the Sun Devils’ first visit since 1999 and GCU’s first win over ASU since 1999.
The Lopes knocked 11 hits off the Sun Devils for the second consecutive night, but benefited from a vastly better pitching effort than the 13-11 Tuesday loss at ASU.
GCU freshman left-hander Connor Markl, a Scottsdale Notre Dame Prep graduate, made his first start and delivered four innings with one unearned run and four strikeouts. That set the Lopes up to use starters Zach Barnes, Dawson McCarville and Pierson Ohl in relief with an off-weekend ahead.
Between the starters and senior closer Frankie Scalzo, Wednesday night’s GCU relievers allowed one hit over four shutout innings.
“I definitely had more adrenalin than usual just because it was the first college start,” said Markl, whose command has improved to go from allowing 10 earned runs in his first 4 2/3 innings to no earned runs in his past seven innings. “It was a little intimidating, but I tried to take the same approach that I would any other team.”
But it was not just any other team.
The Sun Devils (20-12) and Lopes (23-15-1) had not played since 2010 and have 39 Arizona high school and junior college products between them.
“I certainly hope we can continue to do this every year,” GCU head coach Andy Stankiewicz said. “I just feel like it’s made for the state of Arizona to be able to play a little round robin.”
ASU held a round robin on the pitching mound Wednesday, coming within one switch of a NCAA Division I record with 12 pitchers used.
Markl stranded eight Sun Devils runners on base in the first four innings, when GCU pivoted the game by doing more with its best scoring chance than ASU did.
Lopes junior left-fielder Juan Colato, who went 4 for 5 to be 9 for 14 in the past three games, hit an infield single to load the bases in the bottom of the third inning. With two outs, freshman right fielder Cade Verdusco broke the scoreless tie with a two-run single to right field.
“We always say, ‘Two outs is a death sentence,’ ” said Verdusco, who is 7 for 16 in the past four games to move to .302 for the season after missing the fall for injury.
“We know we can compete with them. We know we can beat them so it was just good to come out here and prove to everybody and our team and even them that we can play with them.”
Senior center fielder Brock Burton followed Verdusco with a RBI single for a 3-0 lead. ASU had a chance to bounce back when it put runners on first and third, but GCU freshman third baseman Jacob Wilson took a grounder while playing in and threw out a runner at home.
“I can go out there and any kind of ground ball that’s going to him (Wilson), I know it’s going to be an out,” Markl said. “It could’ve went a lot of different ways, but he bailed me out.”
ASU scratched out one run, but only managed a single for the remainder of the game.
“If he (Markl) is throwing strikes, he’s pretty tough and that’s a good hitting team,” Stankiewicz said. “Make no mistake about that. They can hit. So for him to do what he did for four innings, fantastic job by him and we needed that.”
The Lopes extended the lead to 4-1 in the seventh inning when sophomore catcher Josh Buckley knocked a two-out RBI single in his second consecutive multi-hit game.
Ohl was as dominant as he has been in Saturday starts, coming off two 11-strikeout complete games. He struck out three of the six batters he sat down in order.
“He loves to compete and obviously he’s got good stuff,” Stankiewicz said of Ohl, whose ERA is now 2.83. “He just knows how to pitch and understands pitching – how to move a ball in and out, how to move it up and down, how to change speeds. He’s really grown up and he’s having a nice season.”
GCU is 14-3 over its past 17 games and will have eight days off before an important WAC series at Sacramento State and the completion of its in-state series with a game at Arizona on May 4.
“It’s part of the growth of the program,” Stankiewicz said. “I’m probably the biggest one guilty of being impatient. You understand that it takes some time. You think about Oregon State. We got swept, but we were really close to maybe getting a split there. Then we go to Oklahoma State and we had a chance to get a win in the end and didn’t.
“I feel like the program’s growing. Going to Tulane and taking two out of three at Tulane, which is a good ball club, bodes well for how the guys are starting to believe in themselves and the program. That’s got to be our motivation.”
Press Release courtesy of Grand Canyon Athletics – Paul Coro
