GCU Drops Non-Conference Game at USC

Monday, May 19

Los Angeles, CA

6 p.m.

Grand Canyon

30-22

USC

27-22

Grand Canyon

USC

Brandon Smith went 2-for-3 tonight against USC

Photo by: Theon Carrier

5/19/2014 8:55:00 PM | Baseball

Box Score

Play season finale tomorrow at UC Riverside

The Grand Canyon University baseball team (30-22, 19-8 WAC) fell to the University Southern California (27-22, 14-13 Pac-12) tonight in a non-conference meeting at Dedeaux Field in Los Angeles, Calif. The Trojans led the entire game after scoring two runs in three separate innings.

Click here for Michael Potter's pregame interview with head coach Andy Stankiewicz.
Click here for Michael Potter's postgame interview with assistant coach Gregg Wallis.

Starter Zebastian Valenzuela suffered his first loss of the year (1-1) after surrendering four runs, two earned, on four hits and a walk with a strikeout over 3.0 innings.

Jorge Perez recorded his third straight scoreless outing out of the bullpen, tossing a perfect eighth inning.

Chad De La Guerra extended his streak of reaching base safely to 29 games with a first-inning single and finished 2-for-3 with a run scored for his 24^th multi-hit affair of the season. Brandon Smith also had a multi-hit game for the Lopes, going 2-for-3 at the plate.

Paul Panaccione, Michael Pomeroy, and Josh Meyer each collected an RBI for GCU.

"It's frustrating in that we didn't play our game," said head coach Andy Stankiewicz. "USC is good, and they are fighting hard to get in the postseason. But we felt like we didn't play well enough to win. We made some errors, and they proved to be crucial. We hit a couple of guys in situations where we just can't do that."

The Trojans struck first with a run in the second inning on a double down the left field line with one out on the board. A second run came across for USC via a wild pitch, but both were unearned as an error was made earlier in the frame.

GCU put runners on the corner with nobody out in the top of the third on a leadoff double by Smith followed by an infield single by Jon Kealoha. A walk to David Walker loaded the bases for the Lopes, and the first run came across on a double-play ball as GCU cut the Trojans' lead in half.

USC returned the favor by loading the bases with no outs in the bottom of the fourth and got two runs across on a sacrifice fly and sacrifice bunt before a fly out to left field ended the frame with the Trojans ahead 4-1.

Pomeroy plated Panaccione with a groundout to second base to make it 4-2 in favor of USC in the sixth. However, the Trojans loaded the bases with one out in the bottom half of the inning and got two runs across to extend their lead to 6-2.

De La Guerra singled and moved to second on an error by the USC centerfielder to open the eighth inning. He came around to score two batters later on a groundout by Meyer, once again cutting the lead in half at 6-3. That would end the scoring for either side in the game.

"Unfortunately, we didn't play as well as we would have liked, and it was one of those games where you hated to see it get away from us," added Stankiewicz. "But we just need to regroup and end on a good note tomorrow."

The Lopes will conclude their 2014 season with a contest at UC Riverside tomorrow with first pitch slated for 3 p.m. The game can be heard on a tape-delayed basis in Phoenix at 5 p.m. by tuning in to Independent Talk 1100 AM KFNX (online at www.1100kfnx.com or via the TuneIn Radio app on any smartphone).

USC 6, GCU 3