Lopes fan 16, take opener at UTRGV

Friday, April 13

Edinburg, Texas

5 p.m.

Grand Canyon

18-15, 9-1

UTRGV

17-17, 3-4

Grand Canyon

UT Rio Grande Valley

4/13/2018 8:58:00 PM | Baseball

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Bullpen tosses 4.1 hitless innings

By: Josh Hauser

EDINBURG, Texas - Grand Canyon limited UT Rio Grande Valley to just four hits as the Lopes opened the three-game weekend series with an 8-3 win on Friday night. GCU's bullpen combined to toss 4.1 scoreless, hitless innings

UTRGV managed just one hit off of GCU starter Jake Wong through the first three innings. With the game tied 1-1 in the fourth, the Vaqueros were threatening to take a lead. GCU's middle infield, however, had different plans as they kept a run from scoring by turning an impressive 6-4-3 double play.

"Wong needed it," head coach Andy Stankiewicz said. "He was laboring a little bit and got a nice ground ball to Mumper's backhand side. He did a nice job of setting his feet and throwing a strike to Bull. Bull made a nice quick turn to get that force out first and get us out of the inning. That was big, because they were moving pretty good and had a lot of momentum on their side."

The twin killing did prove to be a momentum swing, as the Lopes turned and scored four runs to jump out to a 5-1 lead.

Preston Pavlica and Tyler Wyatt set the table with singles to lead off the frame. Marc Mumper hit a ground ball hard in the hole to drive in the go-ahead run and Austin Bull grounded out up the middle to score another run.

On the second pitch he saw, Quin Cotton hit the second home run of his GCU career to left-center field. It was the exclamation point on a four-run inning that put GCU in front 5-1.

UTRGV scored twice in the home-half of the frame to cut the deficit in half, but the Lopes bullpen took over from there.

"The bullpen just came in and mowed them down for us. That's huge," Stankiewicz said. "Just pick each other up. We needed to quiet down their momentum, and Nick Ohanian did a great job of getting us out of a jam."

Ohanian got four outs, Josh Andrews three and Mick Vorhof the final six. The trio of relievers combined to throw 4.1 innings of scoreless, hitless relief, walking just one and striking out 10. Vorhof struck out five of the six batters he faced.

GCU's offense sealed the victory with a three-run spot in the eighth inning. The first four batters all reached with Wyatt and Mumper each following behind with sacrifice flies.

"A big homer by Quin was good, but what I really liked was the two sac flies by Wyatt and Mumper," Stankiewicz said. "With the bases loaded, just staying on it and using the big part of the field and getting those two runs late."

The four hits by opponent tied GCU's third-lowest opponent hit total of the season. Combined with the bullpen's 10 strikeouts and Wong's six, GCU struck out 16 Vaqueros on the night -- the third-highest mark for GCU's staff this season.

GCU and UTRGV will reconvene at UTRGV Baseball Stadium on Saturday night at 4 p.m. MST. Jake Repavich (2-2, 6.88) is set to face Vaqueros' LHP Jorge Flores (4-3, 3.77).