Lopes tally season-highs in hits and runs, top Omaha

Sunday, March 6

Phoenix, Ariz.

1 P.M.

Grand Canyon

7-4

Omaha

6-6

Omaha

Grand Canyon

3/6/2016 4:13:00 PM | Baseball

Box Score

By: Josh Hauser

PHOENIX - After season highs of 12 runs and 15 hits, the Grand Canyon baseball team snatched the rubber match to claim a three-game series against the University of Nebraska-Omaha on Sunday at Brazell Stadium. The Lopes scored the final eight runs of the contest to break a 4-4 tie and come away 12-4 victors.

"We swung the bats well. The encouraging thing was that we were able to stay on it and score runs late," head coach Andy Stankiewicz said. "These past two games, we have shown the ability to put together great at bats late and score some runs."

Jake Repavich limited Omaha to just three earned runs in six innings of work. Freshmen Jake Wong and Josh Andrews finished off the game with three combined innings of scoreless relief. Wong struck out four of the seven batters he faced.

"Repavich did a nice job," Stankiewicz said. "He didn't pitch his best game, but had no walks and made them work for runs. Wong came in and threw two nice innings and Andrews did the same thing."

Garrison Schwartz and Preston Pavlica headlined a GCU offense that recorded its most hits since a May 3 victory over Seattle U last season. Schwartz collected four hits, three RBIs and scored three runs. Pavlica, in just his second career start, had three hits, four RBIs, and scored one run.

"We have 14 freshmen and we know we have to get them some experience," Stankiewicz said. "It's good to see what Pavlica has been able to do. I have to learn to be patient, but we're definitely seeing some good things out of the young guys."

The Mavericks used a series of hard-hit ground balls and bloopers to tally two runs on four hits in the opening frame. With two runners on base, Grand Canyon caught the trailing base runner in a pickle but failed to get either runner out with the Mavericks' lead runner advancing all the way home.

Grand Canyon quickly got to work offensively, responding with a pair of runs to tie the game in the first. Beginning a two-out rally, Schwartz, Pavlica and Brandon Smith strung together three consecutive hits to score two runs. GCU took a lead one inning later with a single tally in the second. Ben Mauseth singled and came around to score on a double to deep left-center by Zach Stierstorfer. The Lopes were 5-for-7 with runners on base in the first two innings. Grand Canyon continued scoring in the third inning. Tyler Wyatt logged GCU's first triple of the season, scoring Smith from first base to put the Lopes in front 4-2.

Omaha came back with two runs in the fifth inning to knot the score at four. The Mavericks did all of their damage with two outs, collecting four straight hits.

The Lopes, however, responded with three-run spots in both the fifth and sixth frames to take a commanding 10-4 lead. Panaccione, Schwartz and Pavlica led off the fifth with consecutive base hits, while back-to-back sacrifice flies from Smith and Wyatt brought runs in. In the sixth, six straight GCU batters reached base as the Lopes tacked on three more runs.

GCU hits the road for a brief, one-game trip to Santa Clara to play the University of San Francisco on Tuesday.

"It's always exciting to be on the road for the first time," Stankiewicz said. "We just have to play our brand of baseball and see what we can do on the road. I think we're in a good spot, we seem to be hitting the ball better and pitching well."

The game, which was originally scheduled to be played on USF's campus, was moved to Santa Clara University's Stephen Schott Stadium due to ongoing rennovations at USF's facility. First pitch between the Lopes and Dons is set for 8 p.m. MT.