GCU tops No. 18 TCU in opener

Friday, February 22

Fort Worth, Texas / Lupton Stadium

5:30 p.m.

Grand Canyon

3-2

TCU

3-2

Grand Canyon

TCU

Photo by: Richard Rodriguez

2/22/2019 10:03:00 PM | Baseball

Box Score Photo Gallery

Mechals, bullpen hold Frogs scoreless for final 7 innings

By: Josh Hauser

FORT WORTH, Texas — Last year, Grand Canyon had TCU on the ropes late in the opener of a three-game series. This year, the Lopes finished the job.

GCU started the road portion of its schedule with a 4-1 victory over No. 18 TCU at Lupton Stadium on Friday night.

"It's a great win, especially talking about the importance of being competitive on Friday nights," GCU head coach Andy Stankiewicz said. "Kade Mechals certainly delivered."

Mechals, a junior, followed up last week's superb outing by tossing 6 1/3 innings of one-run, three-hit baseball to go along with six strikeouts.

"It's huge," Mechals said. "We can play with anybody in the country and everyone on this team believes it. We just have to show up and play our game and not worry about who the other team is. If we play our game, we can beat anyone."

After surrendering a solo home run to TCU junior Jake Guenther on the first pitch of the second inning, Mechals was scoreless for the remainder of his outing. The right-hander's control stammered to open the fourth with two free passes, but a visit from pitching coach Rich Dorman settled things down.

"After that, it was just make pitches and get out of the inning," said Mechals, who promptly ended the threat with a fly ball and double play.

"What Kade did today is what Friday night guys do: they keep you in it," Stankiewicz said. "He made some big pitches when he had to. He gave us a shot."

Trailing 1-0 after Guenther's home run, the Lopes responded with solo homers of their own. Junior Quin Cotton poked a two-out, two-strike pitch to right field in the third inning, showing off his opposite-field power on a ball he hit off the end of the bat. Senior Tyler Wyatt followed in the fifth inning with his first home run of the season, a fly ball that just escaped over the right field wall.

Mechals and the bullpen protected GCU's one-run lead. First out of the bullpen, junior Cole Hoskins entered a dicey situation with a runner on third and one out. The sidearmer coaxed two ground balls, the first of which Lopes second baseman Austin Bull was able to throw home and keep the tying run off the board.

GCU sophomore catcher David Avitia opened a key eighth inning by skying a ball deep to the foggy outfield on a ball that carried beyond the reach of the right fielder and dropped for a triple. Cotton and senior Pikai Winchester followed up with run-scoring hits to grow the Lopes' lead to 4-1.

"In that situation, you need some insurance, you need a bit of padding there," Stankiewicz said. "David was able to help provide that for us, and you could tell the guys just started to feel a little bit better, a little more confident in that moment."

Despite a 4-1 edge, no lead felt safe against a program that has advanced to the College World Series in four of the past five seasons. But the relief efforts of sophomore Coen Wynne and senior Nick Ohanian kept TCU from threatening late.

The bullpen trio of Hoskins, Wynne and Ohanian combined to toss 2 2/3 innings without allowing a hit.

The Lopes outhit the Horned Frogs 8-4 with the only multi-hit performance for either side coming from Cotton. Mechals improved to 2-0 on the season while Ohanian picked up his first save.

GCU snapped a modest three-game TCU win streak that included defeats of No. 1 Vanderbilt, Virginia and Abilene Christian. The Lopes have now won back-to-back games in the series with the Horned Frogs, dating back to last year's win in the series finale.

GCU and TCU return to the diamond for Game 2 of the three-game series on Saturday with first pitch slated for 2 p.m. (Phoenix time).