Grand Canyon dropped a 3-2 decision in a pitcher's duel to Seattle tonight at Brazell Stadium in Phoenix, Ariz.
The loss dropped the Antelopes to 27-20 overall, 14-5 in the Western Athletic Conference. Seattle improved to 23-22, 14-6 and moved to within a half game of GCU for first place in the league. Bakersfield defeated Northern Colorado and is now 1.0 game back of GCU.
The game was scoreless into the fourth when Seattle pushed across the game's first run.
GCU was struggling to get their first hit of the night and waited until
Paul Panaccione led off the seventh with a single to break up the no-hit threat. GCU was unable to score in the inning and Seattle answered with two more in the eighth to open a 3-0 lead.
The Lopes got on the board in the bottom of the eighth when a RBI single by
Thomas Lerouge cut the lead to 3-1.
Chad De La Guerra led off the ninth with a home run to deep right center, his 10
th of the season, but that was as close as the Lopes would get.
Andrew Naderer (3-6) started and took the loss for the Antelopes. He allowed three runs on eight hits over 7.2 innings. He fanned five batters without surrendering a walk.
"Baseball is a crazy game and tonight was completely different than what we were able to do last night," said head coach Andy Stankiewicz. "But give credit to (Genger, Seattle starting pitcher), he pitched a heck of a ballgame. We did not do a good job to adjusting to what he was doing. We knew coming in that this series would be a dogfight. We need to regroup and come back out tomorrow with a chance to win the series.
GCU and SU continue the series with a 12 p.m. contest tomorrow. The game can be found on radio at KXXT 1010 AM (also via the KXXT TuneIn Radio App), the home of Antelope men's basketball and baseball. Live stats be available at
www.gculopes.com.
SU 3 GCU 2