Lopes finish strong, take down Arkansas 6-2

Sunday, March 20

Fullerton, Calif.

10 a.m.

Grand Canyon

23-10

Arkansas

13-16

Grand Canyon

Arkansas

3/20/2016 10:23:00 AM | Softball

Box Score

By: Imani Suber

FULLERTON, Calif. - The Grand Canyon softball team defeated Arkansas 6-2 on the final day of the Easton Tournament. The Lopes improved to 23-10 on the season and Taylor Nowlin picked up her 10th victory.
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GCU put up six runs from five hits and notched one home run. In the circle, Nowlin had a season high 10 strikeouts through 7.0 innings pitched and allowed just two runs through five hits.

While Arkansas put up a pair of runs in the opening frame. GCU responded with a strong showing in the third.

Kendsey Hill trotted over to first for a free base. Shea Smith laid out an effective sacrifice bunt to advance Hill and Newbury smashed a ball to center field and drove her across the plate for the first run of the day. GCU was then able to stack up three more runs as a result of back-to-back Razorback errors that brought in Newbury and Camree Wartman who drew a walk to land on base. Sierra Smith also advanced to home plate as a result of the error to put the Lopes up 4-2.

After the opening frame, the Razorbacks remained scoreless as the Lopes held them for six straight innings and never succumbed to the offensive pressure.

GCU put the nail in the coffin in the final frame when Sierra Smith blasted the ball over the right field fence for a two-run home run and solidified the victory with a 6-2 final outcome.

Sierra Smith led at the plate and was 2-of-4 with two runs, two RBI and tallied her fourth homer of the season.

Lopes Quotes:
Ann Pierson
(On play this weekend) "Overall for the weekend, I felt like we met our expectations. We were hoping at the very least to go 3-2 and we did that against some great opponents. Then of course getting to play the Big 12 and the SEC is also such a great experience for us to continue to learn and grow as a program. Getting our first SEC win today was huge for us and we want to keep scheduling as much as we can in the SEC. Also the big five conferences and all the other conferences to continue to get strong and to prepare us for conference and in another short year and half hopefully postseason right off the bat."

(On beating Arkansas) "What was really cool today is we knew this kid had a change up and we knew it was a factor. What was really neat to see was them continuing to battle and continuing to stay aggressive. That was something we've been working on is not taking too many strikes and being more aggressive in our at bats. They continued to work on adjusting to a kid that was throwing multiple change ups in an at bat rather than guessing and fixating on it and that's been something that we've been trying to learn as a team and I felt good about that. I didn't feel like there was a sense of panic. I felt like they maintained their confidence and composure and stuck with their plan and it worked. We were able to put kids on and put things in motion and make things happen with our speed and just being able to put the ball in play. Then of course Sierra's (Smith) ball got out of here in a hurry and that's always fun to see as well."

(On Shea Smith and Madelyn Dowdle hitting .500 on the weekend) "It was great because nothing grows our freshman up more than experience. That's the only way they can continue to get better is to just throw them into the deep end of the pool. Hopefully, they've responded as well as our sophomores are. Maddie and Shea just had phenomenal weekends, but as did everybody through the lineup. I was really pleased again with their composure and their confidence going into such a big weekend with five big teams and they didn't waver. They were excited to play and you didn't see them get on their heels or get afraid at all and we didn't see any fear. If you're not afraid of your opponent you have a chance to win. Of course Taylor (Nowlin) threw another great game, 10 strikeouts. She went through just a little bit of adversity and she managed to figure out the adjustments she needed to make and she did that. She relied on our defense and our defense was great all weekend. That's the best weekend we've had defensively. The kids did a great job and should really be proud of themselves and the way they represented the university and certainly the program in how they played and competed this weekend."

Lopes Notes:

GCU improved 23-10 and finished the Easton Tourney 3-2.
They earned their first SEC win in program history on Sunday against Arkansas (6-2).
Both Madelyn Dowdle and Shea Smith hit over .500 on the weekend to lead at the plate.
Shea Smith lead the squad in batting average (.533) and was 8-for 15 with two runs, three RBI. She was perfect from the field in the team's victory over UNLV (4-of-4) for the second time this season. She collected her first perfect outing in Week 1 against UMBC (2-of-2).
Madelyn Dowdle hit .500 and was 8-of-16 with two runs, a double and three RBI. Dowdle was perfect in the batter's box in the weekends contests against DePaul (3-of-3) and UNLV (4-of-4).
This marks the first time this season that a Lope has had a pair of perfect outings in the same weekend.
In the circle, Taylor Nowin had a season-high 10 strikeouts against Arkansas and improved to 10-3. She struck out 19 through 18.0 innings pitched with seven earned runs from 11 hits and yielded a 2.72 ERA.
Shea Smith now leads the Lopes with .533 batting average and continues to lead the team with 12 doubles.
Camree Wartman combined for three hits against No. 6 Alabama and No. 13 Oklahoma.
Wartman is the only Lope to garner hits in all the team's contests against both ranked and Power 5 conference opponents this season. She now sits in the second spot on the squad with a .413 batting average.
Both Shea Smith and Madelyn Dowdle went a perfect 4-for-4 in the team's 8-0 rout of UNLV Saturday night. This marks the second time this season, that two players produced a perfect outing.
For the second time this season, Shea Smith was perfect from the field. She collected her first perfect outing in Week 1 against UMBC.

Up Next: The Lopes return to action Wednesday, March 23, 2016 for a pair of contests at Loyola Marymount. GCU will face LMU for the second time this season. First pitch is set for 12 p.m. and 2:30 MST