Lopes struggle on the mound, fall to Seattle U

Friday, April 15

Seattle, Wash.

5 P.M.

Grand Canyon

15-17, 0

Seattle

21-11, 0

Grand Canyon

Seattle U

4/15/2016 8:06:00 PM | Baseball

Box Score

By: Steven Gonzalez

SEATTLE – Grand Canyon baseball took its second road trip within the Western Athletic Conference, making the trip to face Seattle U. The Lopes struggled on the mound as the Redhawks took Game 1 of a three-game series 10-3. GCU is now 15-17 overall and 4-6 in the WAC.

"We fought back in the middle of the game but we gave up too many big innings and that was the story of the ball game," assistant coach Gregg Wallis said. "We gave too many free bases and we need to improve heading into tomorrow's game."

The Lopes had to play catch up as Seattle jumped out to a 3-0 lead, after Brendel walked the first two batters and Seattle capitalized. The Redhawks would add another in the third but Brendel would settle down, retiring the last nine batters he faced, striking out five batters.

Garrison Schwartz got things started on offense for the Lopes in the top of the fifth, leading off with a triple. After the triple, Zach Malis brought in Schwartz on a fielder's choice, for his 12th RBI of the season to cut Seattle's lead 4-1.

With the bases loaded in the bottom of the seventh, Jake Wong came in for relief for GCU with just one out. Wong got a much needed strikeout for the second out and his defense behind him stepped up as Austin Bull prevented two runs from scoring with a diving stop to get the runner out at second base, preventing Seattle U from scoring.

GCU built off the momentum in the seventh inning as Malis hit his second home run of the season, bringing in Paul Panaccione for his third RBI of the game. The Redhawks responded quickly after the Lopes' cut their lead to just one run. Seattle would score two runs in the bottom of the seventh to make it 6-3.

Seattle would add four insurance runs in the bottom of eighth and would close out the game in the ninth. The series continues in Seattle on Saturday, April 16, against the Redhawks at 2 p.m. at Bannerwood Park.