Lopes post their largest margin of victory in 55-year series with Wildcats
(Tucson, AZ) The Grand Canyon baseball team began an eight-game road trip with a 19-3 rout of No. 11 Arizona on Tuesday night.
GCU toppled the Wildcats for the third consecutive season, this time by its widest margin in the 55-year history of the series. GCU beat a top-15 team for the first time since knocking off No. 7 TCU on Feb. 18, 2018.
“Anytime you’re on the road and you play a program like Arizona and come out with a win it’s a good thing,” Lopes head coach Andy Stankiewicz said. “I’m proud of the guys and their effort and the way they went about it.”
Paired with Sunday’s 15-4 win over Nevada, the Lopes’ offense scored 15 or more runs in back-to-back games for the first time since February 2010. The Lopes handed the Wildcats their worst home loss since 2013 and worst nonconference loss since 2010.
The Lopes (2-2) jumped out to an early 4-0 lead after two innings, collecting six hits despite heavy winds blowing in from center field. Sophomore first baseman Elijah Buries led off the game with a single on the first pitch, and the Lopes were off and running. Buries advanced to second on a wild pitch and came around to score on a sacrifice bunt by sophomore left fielder Cade Verdusco.
GCU was aided by two throwing errors in the second inning and parlayed those mistakes into two RBI singles by senior second baseman Jonny Weaverand Buries, followed up by an RBI double by senior third baseman Juan Colato to extend the lead to 4-0.
The Lopes weren’t done scoring in the early going as freshman designated hitter Maxwell Andeel powered through the incoming wind and hit a two-run home run in the third to push the GCU lead to 6-0. The Placentia, Calif., native has started his GCU career off with two extra-base hits in his first three collegiate at bats.
That cushion was more than enough for sophomore pitcher Connor Markl, as he went five innings and allowed just one run with a career-high eight strikeouts and only two walks. Markl shut down an Arizona (3-1) offense that outscored Kansas State, Oklahoma and No. 14 Texas Tech 35-12 in three wins in Texas over the weekend.
“It all starts on the mound,” Stankiewicz said. “Connor came in and established it really well and did what we needed him to do. And when you see the job he did it just carried over. We got some momentum and some good at bats together early and we were able to jump out in front.”
Sophomore catcher Tyler Wilson provided the exclamation point for the Lopes with a grand slam in the top of the sixth to make it an 11-1 GCU lead. After a GCU ground out started the inning, four straight Lopes reached base before Wilson cleared them with his first grand slam.
The Lopes kept the offense rolling with four more runs in the seventh off a Weaver solo home run, an RBI single by Verdusco and a two-run double from Wilson.
Wilson finished with six RBIs, a career-high, while Buries tallied three hits and four runs scored in the leadoff spot.
“You’ve got the offensive approach with Tyler (Wilson) with his six RBIs, that doesn’t happen very often,” Stankiewicz said. “He got a couple of really good swings. He looks locked in and really good. We’ve got to put the ball in play and put pressure on the defense and I think we did a good job of that today.”
The Lopes will hit the road again for three games at UC Irvine on Feb. 25-27.
“Hopefully we’ve got some momentum heading to UC Irvine,” Stankiewicz said. “They are a great program. Then we stay down there. There’s going to be some tough competition moving forward like there always is and that’s what we want. But we know tonight was a good thing to build on.”
Press Release courtesy of Grand Canyon University – Jerob Moon
