Baseball Sweeps North Dakota

Sunday, May 11

Grand Forks, ND

11 a.m.

Grand Canyon

28-20, 0

North Dakota

10-26, 0

Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	Runs R	Hits H	Errors E
Grand Canyon	5	0	0	0	0	1	0	1	0	7	13	0
North Dakota	1	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	0	3	9	0

Brian Kraft went 3-for-3 with 2 doubles and 2 runs scored in today's game at UND

Photo by: Theon Carrier

5/11/2014 1:47:00 PM | Baseball

Box Score

Second series sweep in WAC play for GCU

The Grand Canyon University baseball team (28-20, 17-7 WAC) got the series sweep over the University of North Dakota (10-26, 8-13 WAC) with today's 7-3 victory at Kraft Memorial Field in Grand Forks, N.D. It is the second Western Athletic Conference series sweep for the Antelopes, who took three from visiting Chicago State from March 28-30 at Brazell Stadium.

Click here for Michael Potter's postgame interview with assistant coach Gregg Wallis.

Heading into the final weekend of WAC play, the Lopes are now just 1.0 game behind leader Sacramento State.

GCU jumped out an to early 5-0 lead, each of which scored with two outs on the board, and added one apiece in the sixth and eighth innings. The closest that UND would come in the game was three runs.

"It's tough to sweep in general in college baseball," said head coach Andy Stankiewicz. "The conference is good, everyone is competitive. So this is great for our program as we move forward, and it keeps us in the hunt. That's the exciting part, that we are going to go into the final weekend with a chance to win this thing."

"I'm proud of their effort today," added Stankiewicz. "We had the big inning there early. We scored a lot of runs this weekend with two outs, which isn't easy to do, so that was good to see. Those runs in the sixth and eighth gave us a cushion to finish it out. Anytime you can win three games on the road you will certainly take it."

Offensively, the Lopes picked up their fifth straight double-digit hitting game and their 22^nd of the season. Brian Kraft led the effort after collecting a season-high-tying three hits and reached base in all four plate appearances after also drawing a walk in the sixth inning.

Michael Pomeroy made it a 13-game hit streak with a single in the second inning and was one of three GCU players with two hits in the game. David Walker and Brandon Smith also collected a pair of hits.

Starter Ethan Evanko allowed three runs on seven hits with a strikeout over 5.0 innings of work to improve to 5-1 on the season. Zebastian Valenzuela and Malcolm Purdy combined to toss 4.0 scoreless innings of relief.

The Lopes quickly put runners on first and second in the first inning after Chad De La Guerra reached on a fielder's choice and was followed by a walk to Pomeroy. Humberto Aranda plated the first run with a single to left field, while Mauseth collected his second triple of the series to make it 3-0 in favor of GCU. Charles Wagner promptly singled through the left side to allow Mauseth to cross home plate and an infield single off the bat of Smith gave the Lopes the five-run advantage before the inning was over.

UND got on the board in the bottom half of the first on a two-out triple to right-centerfield and got their second run via a solo home run in the third inning.

GCU loaded the bases with nobody out in the sixth and got a run across on a double-play to extend their lead to 6-2. UND responded with a run of their own in the bottom of the sixth.

Kraft collected his third hit of the game to lead off the eighth inning and was moved to second on Smith's sacrifice bunt, the 55^th successfully converted sacrifice bunt by the Lopes this season, setting a new team record. GCU had runners on the corners with one out in the frame and plated their seventh run with a sacrifice fly to left field by Panaccione to allow Kraft to cross home plate.

That would end the scoring for either side, although UND had runners on first and second and no outs in the ninth before a double-play and groundout ended the game.

GCU will now return home for their final three games at Brazell Stadium, a WAC series against Utah Valley, who is just behind the Lopes in the conference standings. That series will get underway on Friday at 6:30 p.m. and all three games will be broadcast live on Independent Talk 1100 AM KFNX (online at www.1100kfnx.com or via the TuneIn Radio app on any smartphone).

GCU 7, UND 3