'Lopes Fall to Fresno State

Tuesday, February 18

Fresno, CA

7:35 p.m.

Grand Canyon

1-3

Fresno State

3-1

Grand Canyon

Fresno State

Humberto Aranda made his first start behind the plate and had 2 hits against Fresno State

Photo by: Theon Carrier

2/18/2014 10:45:00 PM | Baseball

Box Score

Will play home opener on Friday vs. Hofstra

The Grand Canyon University baseball team (1-3) concluded their nearly week-long roadtrip with a 10-1 loss at Fresno State (3-1) tonight at Beiden Field in Fresno, Calif.

It was a matchup between teams who had previously competed against one another while both were members of the Western Athletic Conference, although this was their first meeting since the 1997 season.

"When you play a team like Fresno State, and give them too many free bases, they are going to capitalize, and tonight they did," said head coach Andy Stankiewicz. "We can't afford to give up big innings against a program like that. They have won a national title and have had a lot of success."

Starter Ethan Evanko tonight made his GCU debut, allowing four runs (three earned) on five hits with two strikeouts over 3.2 innings of work to suffer the loss.

Zebastian Valenzuela and Scott Serigstad both tossed scoreless innings of relief for the Antelopes.

Offensively, Humberto Aranda, making his first start behind the plate, accounted for two of GCU's four hits, while Chad De La Guerra and Michael Pomeroy also recorded a knock in the game. For the contest, the Bulldogs had 10 hits.

"We have to get our guys to commit to contact and putting the ball in play," added Stankiewicz. "We need to put pressure on the defense, play good defense on our side, and pitch well. We didn't do that tonight and the result is to get beat by nine. This is a learning curve. The teams we are playing now will take advantage of mistakes, so we have to be better."

Fresno State used a couple of big innings to distance themselves from the 'Lopes after both put up zeroes over the first two frames.

The Bulldogs opened the scoring after loading the bases with no outs in the bottom of the third inning, taking a four-run lead via three hits and a GCU error.

De La Guerra then led off the top of the fourth with a double to the right side and one batter later, was moved to third on a groundout to the shortstop. Pomeroy plated GCU's first run of the game with an RBI groundout to second base to score De La Guerra.

Fresno State once again had the bases loaded, this time with one out, in the bottom of the fifth. Malcolm Purdy got a strikeout for the second out, but a fielder's choice pushed home another Bulldogs run to make it a 5-1 game, still with the bases loaded. Fresno State added another run via a hit by pitch one batter later, and a double to left center cleared the bases and handed the Bulldogs a 9-1 advantage in the same frame.

Back-to-back hits in the seventh allowed Fresno State to tack on another run, which would end the scoring for either squad for the remainder of the game.

The 'Lopes will next host Hofstra University for a four-game series, beginning with their 2014 home opener on Feb. 21 at 6:30 p.m. at Brazell Stadium. That game will be broadcast live on Cox7 and www.cox7.com.

"It will be nice to be back in Phoenix," Stankiewicz said. "We will get ready for a big weekend. I think we are all excited to be back home and we will be ready to go on Friday. Hofstra is a good team, and this will be the first time they are playing this season, so we know they will be excited to go."

FS 10, GCU 1