Lopes need 2 Saturday wins for tourney title

Friday, May 27

Mesa, Ariz.

8 p.m.

Grand Canyon

41-18

Abilene Christian

29-28

Grand Canyon

Abilene Christian

5/28/2022 12:53:00 AM | Baseball, Paul Coro

Box Score Photo Gallery

GCU plays Abilene Christian at 1 for title-game spot at 6 vs. NMSU

By: Paul Coro

MESA, Ariz. – The Grand Canyon baseball team did not lose a conference series this season, and now the Lopes' WAC Tournament fate depends on that holding true Saturday.

GCU's eight-game winning streak ended Friday night with a 6-5 loss to Abilene Christian, setting up a 1 p.m. tournament rubber match between the teams on Saturday with the winner staying for a 6 p.m. championship game against New Mexico State at Hohokam Stadium.

The 25th-ranked Lopes (41-18) opened the tournament with an 8-4 win against the Wildcats (29-28) but could not eliminate them Friday night. GCU left the bases loaded three times and stranded 14 runners before Abilene Christian won in the ninth inning with three no-out singles.

Juan Colato

"Those are situations where we have to put a ball in play," Lopes head coach Andy Stankiewicz said. "Anxious. We're leaving the zone. The pressure's on him, not us. He's got to get the ball over the plate. Sometimes it's human nature to 'you want to, you want to' and 'I gotta, I gotta, I gotta.' Guys get big and anxious and want to do too much.

"It's tournament baseball. Frustrating, but we've got to let it go. We let those ABs get away. We chased out of the zone a lot. It's hard to compete when you're not getting good pitches to swing at."

If the Lopes defeat the Wildcats, they will have a winner-take-all championship game with an Aggies team that they swept two weeks ago in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

GCU went 0 for 7 with the bases loaded, stranding three runners with one out in the third inning, two outs in the fifth inning and no outs in the seventh inning.

With the game tied at 5-5, GCU had first crack in the top of the ninth inning with junior pinch-hitter Adrian Torres' leadoff walk, but he was doubled off at first base on junior Ambren Voitik's popped-up bunt.

"You want to flush it, but you also want to learn," Stankiewicz said. "Backs to the wall. It's a chance for us to establish it. We want to be WAC champs. We won the regular season, but this is a huge tournament, so we've got to come back tomorrow and compete."

After the Lopes posted a 2.50 ERA for the first two tournament wins, GCU pitchers allowed six earned runs in eight innings on Friday night despite junior reliever Blake Reilly's two shutout innings. Since allowing five earned runs in his first appearance of the season, Reilly has posted a 3.00 ERA.

GCU sophomore first baseman Elijah Buries bounced back from the end of his third double-digit hitting streak for a three-hit Friday, his sixth multi-hit game in the past seven games. Buries' first hit combined with a single by graduate designated hitter Juan Colato to spark a two-run third inning, when runs scored on junior right field Tayler Aguilar being hit by a pitch and junior catcher Josh Buckley drawing a walk with the bases loaded. Buckley reached base in his first four plate appearances and knocked in a run on his fifth.

Lopes starting pitcher Connor Markl blanked the Wildcats without a ball leaving the infield in the first two innings, but Abilene Christian scored once in the third and three times in the fourth with drives to each corner of the park.

A Buries two-out single started another two-run rally in the sixth, when Colato battled out of an 0-2 count for a full-count RBI double and sophomore shortstop Jacob Wilson tied the game at 4-4 with an RBI single.

GCU dodged trouble in the sixth inning when Buckley threw out an attempted steal and sophomore Eli Ankeney drew a line-out to strand the bases loaded.

Abilene Christian sophomore left fielder Miller Landasau hit his third home run of the season for a 5-4 lead in the bottom of the seventh, but the Lopes re-tied the game in the top of the eighth on a Buckley bases-loaded grounder.

The Wildcats' ninth-inning rally included three no-out singles, including one that broke center fielder Grayson Tatrow's 0-for-17 tournament slump and the Tommy Cruz winner on his first hit.

"Tommy's our best bat-to-ball guy," Abilene Christian head coach Rick McCarty said. "He had a hard night. He struck out three times early on and got down with two strikes there. I'm really proud of him. Biggest moment of his career in a Wildcat uniform. That's our first walk-off win in '22. We get to put the uniform back on tomorrow on championship Saturday, so I know the guys will be fired up about that opportunity."

The Wildcats (29-28) has won three consecutive elimination games since losing their WAC Tournament opener to the Lopes. Abilene Christian won twice on Saturday, starting with a 9-4 win against Lamar before only needing to use two pitchers to beat GCU in the nightcap.

"We've got to come out and play better baseball," Buries said. "We just weren't good when we had runners on. We left way too many guys on base. Tomorrow, we'll clean it up and score those guys and we'll be all right. We're getting on. We've just got to execute and let the pressure get off us. When guys are on, the pressure's on them."