Lopes down Wyoming, move to 2-0 in tourney

Saturday, September 3

Phoenix, Ariz.

7 p.m.

Grand Canyon

4-1,0-0WAC

Wyoming

1-5,0-0Mountain West

Wyoming

Grand Canyon

9/3/2022 9:26:00 PM | Volleyball

Box Score

GCU bounces back from 3rd-set defeat, cruises to 4-set win

By: Josh Hauser

Grand Canyon ran its record to 2-0 in the GCU Invitational with a 3-1 victory over Wyoming on Saturday night at GCU Arena.

The result sets up a tournament championship between the Lopes and Santa Clara on Sunday at 2 p.m., two teams who boast 2-0 marks in the tournament thus far.

In Saturday's victory, the Lopes felt that the pieces of the puzzle finally began to align.

"This game really was our turning point to be honest," senior setter Klaire Mitchell said. "This game we were finally figuring out our system, who we are. We have lots of newbies so just trying to mesh and get them all comfortable out there. I thought this was really the first game where we felt like that."

The Lopes hit .276 — their highest mark since the season opener — including a scorching .455 in the fourth set.

"I felt like today was finally the day that we started playing our brand of volleyball and understanding some of our schemes and things like that," GCU head coach Tim Nollan said. "We have a lot of new faces getting on the court and getting indoctrined into how we play and how the defense works and how the transition offense works. It takes some time. I felt like today was the first match that we've shown it and started to be successful in it."

The Lopes cruised to a 2-0 match lead before Wyoming opened the third set with a 5-0 advantage. While GCU narrowed the deficit several times in the third in an attempt to finish off a sweep, the early hole was too much to dig out of.

When the Lopes were struggling early in the third set, Nollan turned to freshman outside Tatum Parrott who provided a spark and helped gain GCU momentum for the fourth set.

"We're really lucky," Nollan said. "We have a really good outside hitter corps. Mac (Wise) got the start tonight and she was playing great the first two sets. She made a couple of errors in the third and just looked like she was maybe getting out of rhythym. We brought Tatum in who is just a little different style of attacker. She gave us a quick three kills and helped us rally at the end of the third set which helped set us up for success in the fourth."

The Lopes wasted little time jumping out to a huge advantage in the fourth set to put the match away. GCU led by scores of 7-1, 11-3 and 21-5 before winning the set 25-10.

"We just had a bad start, some errors in the beginning," Mitchell said of the third set. "But I just think throughout the match we were able to create little runs that gave us some momentum at the end of the third set so we could take it to the fourth and start out strong."

Following a home-opening sellout on Friday, another vocal contingent of Havocs and other GCU fans showed for a crowd of 1,472.

"It's unreal," Kansas City graduate transfer Melanie Brecka said. "I've never played in front of a crowd this big before that's had this much energy. I used to play against them so it's really nice to have them cheering for me instead of against me."

Brecka finished with a GCU-high 11 kills while hitting .435. Mitchell finished with 31 assists. Parrott hit .313 and ended with seven kills.

The Lopes wrap up the GCU Invitational with a high-stakes matchup on Sunday afternoon.

"Santa Clara is a really quality club," Nollan said. "They have some big, physical pieces. There's going to be some matchup challenges for us. I'm hoping that we can bring our brand and style of volleyball to that match tomorrow and try and make them adjust to us."