GCU splits with WNMU as Lopes go homer happy

Softball

4-22-09

SILVER CITY, N.M. -- They lived for the long ball.

Grand Canyon belted five home runs in a 15-6 five-inning mercy-rule win at Western New Mexico Wednesday. Yasmeen Watkins went 4 for 4, cranking two home runs and driving in seven runs as GCU pounded 17 hits in the opening game of a doubleheader.

GCU (37-27) lost the second game, 15-7.

Samantha Tiefenthaler hit a home run in both games. She went 2 for 4 with three RBI in the opener, and 1 for 2 with two RBI in the second game to raise her batting average from .279 to .297 in one day as Grand Canyon completed the regular season. Tiefenthaler (pictured left) hit her third and fourth home run in the past five days. She drove in 11 runs during that span in which the Antelopes have played six games against three different opponents in three cities and two states -- all on the road.

Grand Canyon travelled by bus from Phoenix to Silver City on Monday, hours after returning from a three-day trip to the San Francisco Bay Area, where they played two different teams. GCU has spent the entire month of April on the road.

"I was happy with our run production," said Ann Pierson, GCU's first and only coach in the program's six-year history. "We played better defense, and I was happy with that."

GCU's career leader in home runs, Randi Johns, hit her 10th home run of the year, matching Watkins for the team lead this season. Johns (pictured upper right) has 35 career home runs. She's hit 22 in the last two seasons. Watkins has 23 moonshots in two seasons with the Antelopes.

Kelli Bridges hit her second home run of the year in a seven-run second inning of the Lopes' win.

Kara Holtorf went 1 for 3 with two RBI in the second game. Johns hit her school-record 18th double of the year in the second game, going 1 for 2 with a sacrifice fly RBI. Watkins was 1 for 2 with her 12th double of the year and an RBI.

Johns has 56 career doubles, also a school record. Watkins, who drove in a school-record 77 runs this year, has 23 two-baggers in the two seasons she's been with the Lopes.

GCU, which owned the NCAA Division II's ninth best team batting average coming into the week and finished the regular season hitting .345, will state its case to the West Region committee and await the results of the rest of the West's seasons to be completed in anticipation of a berth to the NCAA National Tournament, which begins at select regional sites around the country May 8-10.

Grand Canyon University Athletics

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