Lopes lead early, cruise to win

Tuesday, April 24

Phoenix, Ariz.

6 p.m.

Grand Canyon

23-17

New Mexico

14-24-1

New Mexico

Grand Canyon

Photo by: Michael Rincon

4/24/2018 10:06:00 PM | Baseball

Box Score

GCU has won 4 of last 5 mid-week games

By: Josh Hauser

PHOENIX - Grand Canyon tallied three runs in the opening frame en route to a 7-3 victory over New Mexico on Tuesday evening at Brazell Field at GCU Ballpark. The Lopes claimed their fourth mid-week victory in their last five tries.

The Lopes (23-17) used four pitchers and some timely defensive plays to minimize the Lobos' (14-24-1) opportunities for big innings. New Mexico got the leadoff batter on in seven of the game's nine innings, but GCU responded each time and forced eight Lobos to be stranded on base.

"A couple of guys got on early," assistant coach Gregg Wallis said. "We had some big plays out there. We minimized some innings. (Drew) Zmuda got a little bit tougher when guys got on base."

Zmuda pitched the first three innings scoreless, allowing two hits and two walks. The freshman right-hander was the beneficiary of an early defensive gem that swung the momentum in GCU's favor.

With runners on second and third after back-to-back New Mexico hits, Tyler Wyatt made a running grab of a ball in shallow left field and threw out a runner at home plate who was attempting to advance.

"It was a shallow fly ball, I didn't think he was going to go to be honest," Griffin Barnes, who was on the receiving end of Wyatt's throw to the plate, said. "Tyler came up throwing -- Tyler has a great arm as everyone knows. It was a mid-hop, (I) just got the hop and made the play. I just try to stay as low to the ground as possible and just use my hands, trust my hands to make the play."

Nick Hull entered in the fourth and the first two batters he faced reached via free passes. But Hull got out of the inning unscathed thanks to two strikeouts and a ground ball.

The theme of minimizing runs continued throughout the ballgame, including an inning-ending double play turned by Marc Mumper and Dane Stankiewicz in the sixth.

"Minimizing is the key," Barnes said. "One doesn't hurt us. (The pitching staff) did a good job -- they may not have had their best stuff today, but they battled and gave us a chance."

GCU's offense got to work early, plating three in the first. Ian Evans, Zach Malis and Barnes all picked up early singles, the latter two scoring runs.

The Lopes put up two runs each in the fourth and fifth innings to extend their lead. Preston Pavlica hit a sacrifice fly and Mumper hit an RBI single to score runs in the fourth. Barnes capped off his first career three-RBI game by hitting a two-run double off the top of the left field wall.

"The guys ahead of me did great jobs of extending innings all game with a lot of two-out hits out of Zach and Tyler," Barnes said. "I was kind of expecting a change-up, and he left one up and I was able to put a good swing on it."

Barnes improved his average to .361 on the season, a mark which leads the team.

"Griff had a great day today," Wallis said. "A couple of timely hits and got some RBIs. That's what we talked about-- being greedy for RBIs. Griffin did that today definitely."

With mid-week success in the last month, GCU has improved its record in mid-week games to 5-4 on the season-- a marked improvement from a 3-9 record in such games last year.

"We've been playing well lately in these mid-weeks against some really good clubs," Wallis said. "It was just a team effort tonight. The pitching and defense is why we're doing so well in these mid-weeks."

The Lopes extended their impressive streak of error-free baseball to six games, the program's longest streak since March 2015.

GCU and New Mexico will wrap up the mid-week series on Wednesday afternoon with first pitch scheduled for 2 p.m. MST. Both teams will be relying on a number of arms out of the bullpen, but the Lopes are slated to start RHP Hayden Udall (1-1, 4.66) to face New Mexico's LHP Robert Gasser (1-2, 8.17).