Lopes claim WAC title with 10-4 win

Sunday, May 14

Orem, Utah

11:00 a.m.

Grand Canyon

27-24, 20-4

Utah Valley

16-32, 9-12

Grand Canyon

Utah Valley

5/14/2017 3:17:00 PM | Baseball

Box Score

By: Josh Hauser

OREM, Utah - The Grand Canyon baseball team led from wire-to-wire on Sunday, defeating Utah Valley 10-4 and claiming at least a share of the Western Athletic Conference Regular Season Championship for the second time in three seasons. The Lopes finished the conference schedule an impressive 20-4 (.833), the best winning percentage by a WAC team since 2003.

Grand Canyon ended conference play winning all eight series including four sweeps. The Lopes improved to 5-0 on the season in rubber matches.

"I think more than anything else we just stayed the course," head coach Andy Stankiewicz said. "We got better as the season progressed. We challenged ourselves early with the schedule. The boys just kept pushing. We had to grind through some tough times. We knew that if we stayed on it, we'd put ourselves in a good spot. It all came together."

GCU jumped out to a 4-0 lead but had its lead trimmed to one in the sixth inning. But the Lopes scored two runs in each of the final three innings to put the game away.

"Late in the game we knew it was a tight game. In the dugout we heard the guys saying, 'Let's just win the next three innings'," Stankiewicz said. "Sure enough, the guys put really good at bats together. That was the difference. The guys just stayed on it from an offensive standpoint."

Tom Lerouge, Greg Saenz and Tyler Wyatt led the GCU offensive charge. Lerouge went 4-for-6, extending his hitting streak to a career-long 16 games. Saenz picked up two hits on the day and drove in four runs. Wyatt reached base in all five plate appearances, tallying three hits and driving in two.

Freshman Jack Schneider picked up his sixth win on the season, going 5.2 innings and allowing three runs on five hits. In his eight WAC starts, Schneider went 6-0 with a 4.08 ERA. Grand Canyon won all eight games that Schneider started in conference.

"He's been absolutely terrific in conference," Stankiewicz said. "We needed help. We needed someone to step up. It's just a testament to hard work and keeping his head down and continue to grind out and get better. We gave him a spot start early in conference and he just never relinquished the role. The job he's done as a freshman -- he's so competitive. It was just what we needed."

AJ Franks closed out the outing with 3.1 innings of one-run relief, earning his third save of the year in the final WAC game of his career.

"AJ came in and did what AJ does," Stankiewicz said. "Words can't describe the job he has done for us the last two years. He's a workhorse, he's a competitor, and he's a leader. He's meant the world to us."

Grand Canyon was busy in the top of the first inning, scoring two runs. After Ian Evans, Garrison Schwartz and Preston Pavlica reached consecutively on two singles and a walk, respectively, Saenz grounded a ball through the right side to score a pair.

After stranding a man in scoring position in the second, the Lopes added a run in the third. Pavlica homered to left field, his third home run of the year, to give GCU a 3-0 lead.

Wyatt came up big in the fourth inning, doubling to the wall in left field to score Malis -- who had singled earlier in the frame. Grand Canyon took a 4-0 lead.

Utah Valley put up a three-run spot in the bottom of the sixth inning, scoring its first runs of the ballgame. With four hits in the frame, including a two-out two-run single, the Wolverines pulled within a run at 4-3.

Grand Canyon countered in the seventh, scoring two runs. Utah Valley issued five free passes in the form of four walks and a hit batsmen. Saenz picked up another RBI with a sacrifice fly to center, while Wyatt drew a bases-loaded walk to score the second run of the inning. GCU opened up a 6-3 advantage.

The Lopes continued tacking on insurance runs throughout the remainder of the contest, picking up two runs in the eighth and ninth innings. Pavlica and Saenz picked up RBI singles in the eighth to give the Lopes an 8-3 lead. In the ninth, GCU led off the frame with three consecutive singles with a sac fly by Evans plating a run and an RBI double by Schwartz scoring another.

Austin Bull gloved a line drive in the bottom of the ninth for the final out and the celebration was on.

Second-place New Mexico State would need a three-game sweep of its final conference series against CSU Bakersfield to claim a share of the conference title. The Lopes swept a three-game series in Las Cruces earlier this season. If GCU was eligible, they would have cemented a No. 1 seeding at the WAC Tournament.

GCU will wrap up its 2017 season with a non-conference series at UC Davis this weekend in a three-game set beginning on Thursday.