Early Deficit Too Much for GCU in Loss to Kansas

Wednesday, April 16

Lawrence, KS

4 p.m.

Grand Canyon

19-16

Kansas

23-16

Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	Runs R	Hits H	Errors E
Grand Canyon	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	1	6	1
Kansas	5	0	0	1	0	1	0	0	X	7	12	2

Josh Meyer went 2-for-4 in tonight's game at Kansas

Photo by: Theon Carrier

4/16/2014 6:56:00 PM | Baseball

Box Score

Return to WAC play this weekend at Northern Colorado

The Grand Canyon University baseball team (19-16, 8-4 WAC) could not overcome an early deficit as they dropped a 7-1 decision to Kansas (23-16, 6-6 Big 12) tonight at Hoglund Ballpark in Lawrence, Kan. With the loss, the Antelopes split their two-game, non-conference series against the Jayhawks after getting the 5-3 win last night.

The Jayhawks scored five of their seven runs in the first inning.

Click here for Michael Potter's postgame interview with assistant coach Nathan Choate.

"We put ourselves behind right away, and we always talk about trying to minimize innings," said head coach Andy Stankiewicz. "We had a chance there in the first to minimize the damage, and I thought if we could have gotten out of that inning with just a run or two, we would have been okay. But the next thing you know, two runs turned into five and it is difficult to chase five runs after one inning."

Chad De La Guerra and Josh Meyer combined for four of GCU's six hits in the game, while David Walker and Charles Wagner also collected a hit. Wagner plated the lone run for the Lopes in the fifth inning.

GCU starter Joey Wise (0-1) was charged with five runs in 0.2 innings before giving way to reliever Trent Wilson, who allowed a run on five hits over 2.1 innings of work.

Robert Beltran, Scott Serigstad, and Jaren Drummond combined to allow just one run over the final 5.0 innings.

"Robert did a nice job, we needed him to pick us up there and he did a good job," added Stankiewicz. "Jaren also did a nice job. There are positives to take away from this game. We got better in some areas but that first inning put us in a tough spot."

"We had some chances to get back into it, but we couldn't put good at-bats together to get a couple of runs across," Stankiewicz said. "Kansas is a very good team and we saw that in their at-bats today."

Kansas put five runs on the board in the first inning after collecting three walks and three hits as 10 batters came to the plate for the Jayhawks. After being held scoreless over the next two frames, Kansas tacked on another run in the fourth to make it a 6-0 game.

Meyer, who already had a single in the game, doubled to lead off the fifth and moved to third on a groundout by Michael Pomeroy. Wagner plated GCU's lone run of the game with a sacrifice fly to right field to put the Lopes on the board.

GCU looked to add another run in the sixth, but Walker was called out at home after trying to score from second base on a two-out single to right field off the bat of De La Guerra.

The Jayhawks made it 7-1 in the sixth after plating yet another run via a sacrifice fly. Neither team would score for the remainder of the game, although GCU had runners in scoring position in two of the final three innings.

The Lopes will now head to Greeley, Colo., for a three-game Western Athletic Conference series at Northern Colorado beginning on Friday at 2 p.m. (Arizona time). All three games of the series can be heard live by tuning in to Independent Talk 1100 AM KFNX (online at www.1100kfnx.com or via the TuneIn Radio app on any smartphone).

Kansas 7, GCU 1