Season bump shows with loss to Beavers in 8

Monday, March 21

Phoenix, Ariz.

2 p.m.

Grand Canyon

19-9

Oregon State

23-7

Oregon State

Grand Canyon

3/21/2022 7:24:00 PM | Softball, Paul Coro

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Lopes rally but lose 8-7 in 8; Dunckel hits 3rd home run in past 4 games

By: Paul Coro

If matching last season's win total by mid-March or jumping 128 spots in NCAA Ratings Percentage Index did not already scream progress, Grand Canyon softball even showed something about where it has progressed in a loss on Monday.

The Lopes lost 6-5 in eight innings to Oregon State, a 23-7 team that entered GCU Softball Stadium as the nation's No. 29 team in RPI. GCU has gone from No. 218 at the end of last season to No. 90 this week.

On Monday, the Lopes (19-8) rallied from a 2-0 hole to lead and a 5-3 deficit to push to extra innings, where they were 60 feet from tying the game again on the final out.

"We know how good we are," said GCU sophomore shortstop Katelyn Dunckel, who started two double plays defensively and went 2 for 4 with a home run and three RBIs. "I trust my teammates. I know if they have a bad game that they'll bounce back even harder, hit the ball harder and make the plays. There are so many lows and highs. You just have to trust your teammates for when you're in that position of being low.

"We're a team that fights back and definitely doesn't let a loss define us. We know that we can beat anybody, so we come back even harder the next time."

That resolve showed within Monday's game, when a walk and a home run put Oregon State ahead 2-0 and the Beavers followed by loading the bases with no outs. That is when Lopes junior starting pitcher Ariel Thompson flipped her outing to give her team a chance to win. She induced a grounder to Dunckel, who got the force out and home, and two pop outs.

If not for a fifth-inning error, Thompson would have faced the minimum over the next three innings to keep the Lopes within striking distance. After a two-out Dunckel RBI single cut the Nicoletti and Reed

Beavers lead to 2-1, Dunckel returned for more with a full-count, two-run home run that put GCU ahead 3-2 in the fifth.

After three hitless games, Dunckel is on a 6-for-12 tear over the past four games with eight RBIs and her first three home runs of the season.

"KK (Dunckel) played really well and played how we expect her to play," Lopes head coach Shanon Hays said of the Valley Center, California, native who followed him from Oklahoma Christian to GCU. "She's a difference-maker when she does that."

On the first two Beavers at bats of the sixth, the Lopes lost a pop-up and a fly ball. Thompson kept the Beavers off the board with two more pop-ups but third baseman Charity Sevaaetasi hit a three-run home run for a 5-3 le Kinsey Koeltzow

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"I was proud of Ariel," Hays said. "She started off slow and came back to really get control of the game. We made a couple of sun-ball mistakes that let them extend the inning and cost us a three-run home run and the game."

The Lopes tied the game at 5-5 in the bottom of the sixth, when a leadoff walk by junior Hannah Burnett started an inning. Senior left fielder Gianna Nicoletti extended with an infield single, but a baserunning mistake cost GCU a chance to do more than tie the game.

The Lopes put two runners on base with one out in the seventh but did not score, setting up the eighth-inning scenario with each team starting with a runner on second base. Oregon State pushed its runner across without a hit, but GCU stranded its runner at third.

"Usually, when you get 11 hits, you feel like you should win the game, so that was disappointing," Hays said. "We've found ways to compete with some top teams," Hays said. "I feel like we can battle and compete with anybody."

The Lopes resume WAC play this weekend at Dixie State with a Friday doubleheader and one game on Saturday in St. George, Utah.