Baseball Drops First Game at Cal Baptist

Thursday, February 9

Riverside, CA

3 p.m.

Grand Canyon

2-3, 0-1

California Baptist

3-2, 1-0

Grand Canyon

California Baptist

T.J. Roach tossed 2.0 scoreless frames in his first appearance of the season on Feb. 9 at Cal Baptist.

2/9/2012 5:17:00 PM | Baseball

Box Score

The Grand Canyon University baseball team fell to Cal Baptist, 15-5, in the series opener at James W. Totman Baseball Stadium in Riverside, Calif. The Antelopes are now 2-3 overall, 0-1 in Pacific West Conference play, while the Lancers improved to 3-2 overall, 1-0 in the conference.

The ‘Lopes surrendered a season-high 15 runs and 19 hits in the contest as starter Brady Wager (0-2) was charged with 8 runs (7 earned) on 10 hits and three walks with seven strikeouts in 4.1 innings. Wager has recorded seven strikeouts in each of his first two starts to lead the team with 14 punch outs.

“I think we learned that as a pitching staff, when you leave the ball up in the zone, you will get hit,” said head coach Andy Stankiewicz. “Brady got hit. He left some balls up and they took advantage of that. They (Cal Baptist) know what they are doing and they are a good ball club. To their credit, they took advantage of our mistakes. I think we tried to overpower them and that’s not who we are. We have to be a finesse team instead of a power team.”

Lancers’ starter Patrick Smith picked up the win after allowing two runs on three hits and two walks with four strikeouts over 6.0 innings.

GCU reliever T.J. Roach tossed 2.0 scoreless innings of relief in his first appearance of the season, allowing just two hits while collecting two strikeouts.

GCU was held to five hits on the night, three of which came off the bat of second baseman P.J. Garcia. Ernesto Ortiz and Derek Mendoza also collected a hit in the game.

“P.J. has put together good at-bats this season,” added Stankiewicz. “He is not afraid to take a walk and he gets good quality at bats on a regular basis. Our guys need to follow suit instead of looking to pull the ball and do too much. We need to use the whole field. This is a work in progress and we will get there.”

The Lancers opened up the scoring with a two-run first inning via a home run by Matt Marnati and extended their lead to 5-0 when Matt Johnson hit a three-run homer with two outs in the second inning.

The ‘Lopes got on the board in the third inning after getting the bases loaded with just one out as Tagg Duce plated the first run with a fielder’s choice. Garcia scored from third base on a wild pitch before Charles Wagner grounded out to end the inning.

Cal Baptist scored 10 of their runs between the fifth and seventh innings, including a game-high five runs in the sixth inning, after collecting 11 hits over that span.

GCU was held scoreless until the ninth inning when Garcia connected for his fourth home run of the season, a three-run knock with two outs.

The ‘Lopes will next be in action when they play the second of the four-game series at Cal Baptist tomorrow with first pitch scheduled for 3 p.m. Arizona time. The teams will conclude the series with a doubleheader on Saturday scheduled to begin at noon.

CBU 15, GCU 5