Relentless Lopes prevail in 1st tourney game

Wednesday, May 24

Mesa, Ariz.

8:30 p.m.

Grand Canyon

37-19

UT Rio Grande Valley

30-25

UTRGV

Grand Canyon

5/24/2023 10:30:00 PM | Baseball, Paul Coro

Box Score Photo Gallery

Avitia battles to keep GCU close until offense breaks through in 3-1 win

By: Paul Coro

Winning the WAC Tournament will take four days of persistent play, the type that kept Grand Canyon in the winner's bracket on Wednesday night.

While the Lopes were quiet offensively, GCU starting pitcher Daniel Avitia flung his right arm repeatedly like a magic wand to make four UT Rio Grande Valley scoring threats disappear in the first six innings until his teammates' bats broke out. Lopes graduate second baseman Zack Gregory's solo home run tied the game at 1-1 in the sixth inning before consecutive RBI hits by junior outfielders Cade Verdusco and Homer Bush Jr. sent GCU to a 3-1 win at Hohokam Stadium.

The top-seeded Lopes (37-19) won their 14th consecutive game, the nation's second-longest active winning streak, with freshman left-hander Grant Richardson and junior right-hander Nathan Ward each tossing 1 1/3 shutout innings of relief to extinguish the Vaqueros' comebacks hopes. GCU advances to a 7 p.m. third-round game Thursday at Hohokam for its first-ever game against UT Arlington (28-28).

Mesa, AZ May 24, 2023: Grand Canyon gets a 3-1 win over UT Rio Grande Valley. during the 2023 WAC tournament at Hohokam Stadium in Mesa, AZ. Photo by: David Kadlubowski/ / GCU

Mesa, AZ May 24, 2023: Grand Canyon gets a 3-1 win over UT Rio Grande Valley. during the 2023 WAC tournament at Hohokam Stadium in Mesa, AZ. Photo by: David Kadlubowski/ / GCU

Avitia did not earn the win, but he gave GCU a chance to win by continually attacking to limit UTRGV to one run in 6 1/3 innings with the following escapes from jams:

With a runner on second and one out in the first, Avitia induced a ground out and fly out.
With runners on second and third and one out in the fourth, he got a strikeout and popup.
With the bases loaded and one out in the fifth, he stranded all of the runners with a strikeout and blooped liner.
With a runner on third and no outs in the sixth, he left him there with a liner, strikeout and grounder.

"I like adversity," Avitia said. "Like Wally (head coach Gregg Wallis) was telling us, we like adversity here. We don't freak out when we have tough outings like that or getting people on. Just stay composed and keep attacking. Let themselves get out.

"Change-up felt good. I'd just leave it up at times. Everything felt all right. Not the best, but obviously I was like, 'Alright, it's going to be one of those types of outings. Just rip it in there and hope for the best.'

After a rain delay limited his last start to three innings, Avitia threw 103 pitches on Wednesday night with one walk, four strikeouts and a web gem from shortstop Jacob Wilson to take away a second-inning leadoff hit. UTRGV (30-25) had scored 13 or more runs in each game of the four-game winning streak that it took into Wednesday night.

"Their pitcher on the mound was outstanding, but we found a way to do it with pitching and defense and timely pitching and defense," Wallis said. "Danny was getting some baserunners on, but he wasn't letting them score. We made some great plays and then we got some clutch hits. We didn't get a ton of hits, but we got clutch hits. We did enough to get the W. Survive and advance."

The breakthrough offensive moment came after the Lopes held a dugout meeting with hitting coach Jack Wilson to take make adjustments against Vaqueros fifth-year senior Colten Davis, a right-hander who kept GCU to two singles over five innings.

Zack Gregory

With one out in the sixth inning, Gregory worked the count deep, as he has all season, and yanked a full-count pitch into the celebrating GCU bullpen for a 1-1 tie. After eight home runs in his three-season career at Arkansas, the 5-foot-10 Keller, Texas, native leads the Lopes with 11 home runs this season, including one in each of GCU's three wins against UTRGV this month.

"I always knew I had a little juice," Gregory said. "My friends used to make a little fun of me. I always try to get back at them. I think it's just continued work and grind, trying to put barrel on ball and have fun. Just trying to get hits and make things happen for the team and score runs and win games."

The Lopes chased Davis from the game in the seventh inning after junior third baseman Elijah Buries singled and used his speed to steal second and score on a single by Verdusco. Buries went 2 for 4, making him 10 for 23 in the past seven games.

"We knew he was attacking away with a fastball and curveball," Verdusco said. "Just hit his fastball because you know he's going to throw it. We bought in and started putting good swings on the ball. Sticking with an approach is what won us this game.

"Having such a veteran lineup and veteran squad, there's never any panic because we know we're just one swing away. We know we're a good at bat away from tying it up or doing something crazy. We'll just keep winning ball games."

After Verdusco's go-ahead hit, Bush greeted the relief with an RBI hit to right-center field, where the ball was cut off by the center fielder but still could not be thrown back in time to prevent Bush from racing to his 18th double.

The second-half surge from the Lopes bullpen has helped GCU keep opponents to two runs or fewer in eight of the 14 consecutive wins. Richardson, the Phoenix Horizon High School graduate, entered with a runner on third and one out after one of UTRGV's third triples. Previously, GCU had yielded one triple in its 16-game WAC Tournament history. The Vaqueros' failed squeeze bunt attempt led that runner on third to be in a rundown that ended with being tagged out by freshman first baseman Zach Yorke, who also extended his reached-base streak to 36 games.

Ward also entered the game after a Vaqueros triple, their third of the game, with two outs in the eighth after a highlight Bush catch saved another extra-base hit. The 6-foot-8 Phoenix Mountain Pointe High School graduate ended the threat with a strikeout on a 94 mph fastball that froze previously hot Steven Lancia.

Mesa, AZ May 24, 2023: Grand Canyon gets a 3-1 win over UT Rio Grande Valley. during the 2023 WAC tournament at Hohokam Stadium in Mesa, AZ.

Mesa, AZ May 24, 2023: Grand Canyon gets a 3-1 win over UT Rio Grande Valley. during the 2023 WAC tournament at Hohokam Stadium in Mesa, AZ.

Ward retired the Vaqueros in the ninth inning on eight pitches, the last of which resulted in a diving catch by Buries after Wallis' defensive switch to put him in left field.

In the past 13 games, the GCU bullpen has a 1.47 ERA, allowing .168 hitting with 65 strikeouts in 55 innings.

"Credit to all those guys down there," Wallis said of the relievers. "Credit to Coach (Nathan) Bannister. He works his tail off with those guys. The midseason adjustments, We talked about this as a staff. Great basketball and football coaches make halftime adjustments. We felt like we needed to make some midseason adjustments and continue to improve for the end. Coach has been working his butt off doing that. All our guys down there got better. That's why we can win a 3-1 ballgame in the first round of a tournament."

As much as the team needed to rally for wins early in the season, Wednesday marked the first time during the 14-game winning streak that the Lopes were trailing after five innings. But the entire back end of the conference season was a rally with the Lopes needing every win of the streak to pull out its third consecutive regular-season conference title on Saturday.

"Our back has been against the wall for so long now that I don't think that this is anything new," Wallis said. "It wasn't like we've been cruising all year. We've been playing like it's Game 7 of the World Series for the last five weeks. This game, while it was a little intensified because it was an actual tournament, it felt just like our last 15 games of the year."