Hitting stays hot, but GCU loses 9-2 lead to ASU

Tuesday, April 11

Phoenix, Ariz.

6 p.m.

Grand Canyon

18-14

Arizona State

24-9

Arizona State

Grand Canyon

Photo by: Taylor Hansen

4/11/2023 7:49:00 PM | Baseball, Paul Coro

Box Score

Gregory, Bush each collect 4 hits on Lopes' 18-hit game

By: Paul Coro

After missing the chance to assert itself as a newly ranked top-25 team last month at Arizona State, the Grand Canyon baseball team went a different way about flexing its potential for a third consecutive NCAA regional appearance this season.

Red-hot ASU brought its No. 24 national ranking to GCU Ballpark on Tuesday night and the Lopes showed their merits with a 9-2 lead through seven innings, but a nine-run Sun Devils eighth inning washed it away to sweep the two-game, home-and-home series. Eleven unanswered runs gave ASU a 13-10 victory, the Sun Devils' 12th win in their past 13 games.

Each GCU starter hit by the fifth inning as the Lopes built a 9-2 lead by the seventh inning on a season-high 18-hit night in front of 4,311 fans, the fifth-largest crowd in program history. After having eight starters hit in Saturday's win, GCU hit up and down the lineup for the first time this season Tuesday night with junior center fielder Homer Bush Jr. leading the effort by getting on base in each of his six plate appearances (4 for 4 with two walks).

Gregg Wallis

Without the nation's fifth-leading hitter — junior shortstop Jacob Wilson (.465) — in the lineup, GCU has gone 33 for 73 (.452) at the plate in the past two games combined. Second baseman Zack Gregory, a graduate transfer from Arkansas, entered the season with a single-game career high for hits of two but went 4 for 5 with four RBIs on Tuesday.

"For seven innings, that was the best game we've played all year," Lopes head coach Gregg Wallis said. "Unfortunately, we play nine. We let the eighth inning get away from us. I was just talking to the guys about how, when those moments happen, we've got to step forward. This hurts, obviously, because we're playing ASU, and we want to win the ballgame. But it doesn't prevent us from doing what we want to do.

"For the first seven, we were clicking on all cylinders. We looked like a regional team. We looked like a team that could make a run. Everything was going right, we let it get away from us. We've got to be better than that. We've got to learn from that. We've got to make some adjustments, so that it doesn't ever happen again."

Junior right-hander Carter Young gave GCU a quality start to win Tuesday night, his second quality performance in a row. After allowing 15 earned runs in 11 1/3 innings over his first four appearances, Young has allowed three earned runs in 10 innings over his past two starts with 14 strikeouts. Using a 90 mph fastball and an effective three-pitch mix, Young shut out the nation's No. 19 hitting team for the first four innings before turning the lead over to the bullpen.

"Everything's sharp, and he's really locating his pitches," Wallis said of Young. "When he gets two strikes, he's got a little more intent with his two-strike pitches. He's locating. He's pitching. It's classic. He's dotting the outside corner. He's pitching in when he has to. He's going up with his fastball. That makes his breaking ball play better, and his change-up play better."

GCU freshman designated hitter Zach Yorke started the scoring with a first-inning RBI single, the 22nd time in the past 24 games that he has hit safely.

The Lopes stretched the lead quickly to 4-0 when Gregory turned on a down-and-in, off-speed pitch and rocketed it over the right-field wall for a three-run home run, his fourth homer of the season. GCU kept the pressure on in the third inning, blistering bat barrels with a leadoff double by junior third baseman Elijah Buries before sophomore first baseman Eli Paton's single and senior catcher Josh Buckley's two-run double for a 6-0 edge.

Bush manufactured a run nearly by himself in the fourth inning, when he lined a 3-2 fastball back up the middle and then stole second and third bases, giving him 13 steals on the season after having seven last season. That enabled him to score on Yorke's sacrifice fly for a 7-0 advantage.

"We swung the bats well," Buckley said. "We were really aggressive on the basepaths, and that did a lot of good things. The defense played pretty good (no errors). We did a lot of pretty good things, but it's just finding a way to do everything at the same time. Get it done as a whole and not just be one-sided."

Consecutive two-out RBI doubles by Gregory and Bush on two-strike pitches restored the seven-run gap at 9-2 after seven innings. But nine days after beating California with a nine-run eighth inning, ASU did it again to GCU.

An inning after being sent down in order by Lopes reliever Carson Ohl, the Sun Devils (24-9) picked up five hits and a walk off Ohl to trim the Lopes lead to 9-6 before two hits and two walks off reliever Brodie Cooper-Vassalakis put ASU in front 11-9.

Even after ASU freshman right fielder Nick Mclain capped his 3-for-6 collegiate debut with a two-run, ninth-inning home run for a 13-9 lead, the Lopes offense re-emerged for a ninth-inning threat sparked by freshman shortstop Emilio Barreras' triple on his 3-for-5 night, his season high for hits.

Two-out hits by Gregory and Bush brought the potential tying run to the plate in junior left fielder Tyler Wilson, who ripped a line drive that tailed back to center fielder Isaiah Jackson for the final out. It was the first time GCU had lost a game with at least 18 hits since 2018.

"The fight was there," Wallis said. "The fight let up for about one full inning, and they took advantage of it."

GCU (18-14, 9-6 WAC) returns to conference play this weekend at Abilene Christian (23-9, 8-4 WAC), the start of a Texas swing that includes a Tuesday-Wednesday stop at another ranked opponent, No. 21 Texas Tech.

"It's got to start happening," Wallis said. "We've got all the ingredients, and we need to figure out how to use them throughout a ball game.

"We've been kicked around a little bit, but as I've said, if we can figure some things out, I'd rather that happens now than at the end of the year. That's what I've been preaching to these guys. I'd like to be a little more consistent throughout the course of a game. Nobody wants their best moment to be midseason or early in the season. I want our best moment to be at the end. I really believe we can do that if we just clean some things up."

💪 𝐖𝐄𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐑𝐎𝐎𝐌. 💪@_Gregory21 puts one over the right field wall to clear the bases in the 2nd! pic.twitter.com/f5jaPM8UuF
— Grand Canyon Baseball (@GCU_Baseball) April 12, 2023