Lopes out-hit Pepperdine but fall in extras

Friday, March 17

Malibu, Calif.

3:00 p.m.

Grand Canyon

5-10

Pepperdine

8-7

Grand Canyon

Pepperdine

3/17/2017 7:24:00 PM | Baseball

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By: Josh Hauser

MALIBU, Calif. - Despite a 10-5 advantage in the hits column, the Lopes couldn't scratch across a run in a 1-0 12-inning defeat at the hands of Pepperdine on Friday afternoon. The Lopes finished the day hitting just 2-for-20 with runners on base.

"Their starter was good, a guy who's had a lot of success," head coach Andy Stankiewicz said of Waves' starter Ryan Wilson. "He's a legitimate Friday night guy."

While Wilson did his thing for Pepperdine, Jake Wong was even better for Grand Canyon. The right-hander tossed seven scoreless innings, limiting Pepperdine to just two hits. The last 18 batters Wong faced failed to get a hit, while only one reached base at all.

"Jake did a wonderful job of making big pitches and shutting them down," Stankiewicz said. "The shame of it is our guy pitched us a great game, and we couldn't get one run across. That's the frustrating part. We couldn't help him out on the offensive side of it."

With seven scoreless innings added to his ledger, Wong lowered his season ERA to 1.41.

GCU had its share of scoring opportunities throughout the contest, but was left searching for a big hit. The Lopes had leadoff hits in the third, fourth, fifth, ninth and eleventh innings. Austin Bull also had a one-out double in the sixth while Marc Mumper had a one-out double in the eighth.

Grand Canyon's best scoring opportunity of the day came in the 11th inning, loading the bases with just one out. Bull led off the inning with his second hit of the game while Ian Evans was hit by a pitch and Garrison Schwartz singled. Unfortunately for Grand Canyon, the next two batters were retired on a shallow fly ball and a groundout.

"We got runners in scoring position, just couldn't bring them home," Stankiewicz said. "We just have to keep grinding. We believe in these guys. We have to stay positive. The good thing is we get to come right back out here tomorrow. Nobody is going to hand us anything, we have to take it."

After GCU quickly retired the first two batters in the home-half of the 12th, the Waves got life in the inning on a full-count walk. A stolen base put a runner in scoring position, and he was driven in on a walk-off single up the middle by Nick Costello.

For the eighth time in the last nine games, the Lopes posted a double-digit total in the hit column. Everybody got involved with eight different batters recording a hit, two from Bull and two from Greg Saenz.

Grand Canyon returns to the same diamond tomorrow afternoon, but it will be versus a different opponent. Long Beach State will play two games on the day, opening up with Pepperdine before finishing Saturday off against GCU. First pitch between the Lopes and the Dirtbags is set for 3 p.m. MST. Jake Repavich will take the hill for GCU.