Completed Event: Baseball at Stanford on May 9, 2025 , Win , 4, to, 3
Baseball
at Stanford
W 4-3
Grand Canyon University Athletics
Friday, February 16
Phoenix, Ariz.
6 p.m.
Grand Canyon
1-0
5
vs
2
Georgetown
0-1
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
R
H
E
Georgetown
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
2
7
2
Grand Canyon
3
0
1
0
0
1
0
0
X
5
5
0
Photo by: David Kadlubowski
Record crowd sees pitching, Yorke HR key win
2/16/2024 10:20:00 PM | Baseball, Paul Coro
GCU's Avitia, Mattison team for 12 strikeouts, 1 walk vs. Georgetown
During the daytime hours leading up to Grand Canyon's Friday evening first pitch of the season, Lopes head coach Gregg Wallis bounced around the nation via ESPN+ watching other teams' openers.
Nothing looked like the Friday night scene at GCU Ballpark, where a program record attendance of 5,281 fans saw a team that did not look like the other victors either. The Lopes shined with star power to beat Georgetown 5-2 with dominant pitching, clean defense and situational offense.
"This is not common for college baseball," Wallis said after GCU moved to 8-2 in a decade of openers. "This is just so different than anything you see outside the SEC. It's really special to play in front of a packed house."
GCU junior right-hander Daniel Avitia yielded two doubles to open the game but then shut down the Hoyas to only two more hits and no more runs over six innings. Avitia is the ace who came from the GCU neighborhood to become a well-known, high-round MLB Draft prospect.
The bullpen's following act was a magic act that has been reserved to making Lopes swings disappear for months.
GCU freshman right-hander Connor Mattison closed out the win with three relief innings that included seven strikeouts, five of which came consecutively with a steady stream of devastating change-ups and no walks.
"Connor and Danny are two of the toughest at bats in the country, and I mean that," said Lopes sophomore first baseman Zach Yorke, who hit .368 last season to be a Freshman All-American. "All fall, I faced them and I still couldn't figure them out even at the end of the fall."
But Yorke knew what to do with three consecutive looks at breaking balls in his first at bat of the season. When the third one was left over the plate, Yorke crushed a high-arching, three-run home run to right field over the wall's "2023" that signifies GCU's third consecutive WAC regular-season championship. After tying Tim Salmon's 1987 GCU freshman record with 61 RBIs, Yorke jolted a full house to get a jump on his 2024 total.
"If I get a hanging off-speed in the middle of the plate, I tend to be on time for it," said Yorke, the 6-foot-2, 295-pound lefthander who was later walked and hit by a pitch in the back.
"This was awesome. The team was veteran-led last year. Seeing those guys move on and knowing that I'm a leader on this team, it's good to know we can come out here and compete with a team like Georgetown."
The Hoyas featured an eight-senior, physical lineup that Avitia attacked with a three-pitch mix, featuring his usually dominant fastball and the slider he developed throughout the fall.
Avitia battled out of the first-inning jam with 26 pitches to limit Georgetown to a 1-0 lead but then worked economically with 42 pitches over the next four innings. He faced one last two-on, two-out threat in the sixth inning but induced a fly out to the deepest part of the park on his 88th pitch.
"When he becomes a true three-pitch guy, it's going to be even harder to hit him," Wallis said. "We've got such high expectations that he goes six innings and gives up one run and everyone's like, 'What can he do better?'
"He's a competitor. When he gets punched, he punches back. He doesn't let a little bit of adversity affect him. It was just a great performance."
Team offense produced five runs on five hits for the Lopes, starting with senior left fielder Tyler Wilson's leadoff walk, a Georgetown error and junior third baseman Eli Paton's sacrifice bunt to set up Yorke's ninth career home run.
GCU used another combination of a Hoyas error and a walk (to Yorke) to set up designated hitter Beau Ankeney, who lined an opposite-field single for his first career hit after going 0 for 6 in 2022 and redshirting 2023.
Ankeney, a Desert Vista High School graduate from Phoenix, went 3 for 4 to start his third GCU year, just as his older brother, Eli, burst onto the scene with a third-year 2.68 ERA after one appearance in his first two years.
Yorke said Ankeney probably had the best fall of any GCU hitter.
"Big Beau has shown all fall, January and February that he can hit," Wallis said. "He's the perfect guy to back up Zach because he can hit a double or a home run, or he can also use the right side of the field like he showed tonight."
GCU produced its final run in the sixth by moving runners again to follow up Ankeney's leadoff double to the left-field corner. Sophomore shortstop Emilio Barreras bunted Ankeney to third and junior catcher John Sheehan scored him on a suicide squeeze bunt.
That 5-1 lead was turned over to Mattison, who threw his filthy change-up for about three-fourths of his pitches. Mattison admittedly went from antsy to anxious Friday, but he settled in quickly when he drew a grounder for his first batter and then struck out five consecutive batters on 18 pitches.
After allowing a ninth-inning run on two doubles and a bunt single, Mattison ended the game with his seventh strikeout to a batter representing the potential tying run. The change-up is a result of about five years of work after being primarily a fastball pitcher.
"This game is everything I dreamed of since I was 4 years old," Mattison said. "Being out here with these guys means a lot. That was probably my first time coming out of the bullpen since I was 10 years old, but I loved it. I loved the energy, and I loved the crowd here at Brazell (Field)."
GCU will continue the multi-site MLB Desert Invitational with a 6 p.m. Saturday game on MLB Network against USC at Salt River Fields. The Trojans are in their second year under former GCU head coach Andy Stankiewicz, who led 341 wins in 11 Lopes seasons with Wallis as an assistant for nine years.
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Nothing looked like the Friday night scene at GCU Ballpark, where a program record attendance of 5,281 fans saw a team that did not look like the other victors either. The Lopes shined with star power to beat Georgetown 5-2 with dominant pitching, clean defense and situational offense.
"This is not common for college baseball," Wallis said after GCU moved to 8-2 in a decade of openers. "This is just so different than anything you see outside the SEC. It's really special to play in front of a packed house."
GCU junior right-hander Daniel Avitia yielded two doubles to open the game but then shut down the Hoyas to only two more hits and no more runs over six innings. Avitia is the ace who came from the GCU neighborhood to become a well-known, high-round MLB Draft prospect.
The bullpen's following act was a magic act that has been reserved to making Lopes swings disappear for months.
GCU freshman right-hander Connor Mattison closed out the win with three relief innings that included seven strikeouts, five of which came consecutively with a steady stream of devastating change-ups and no walks.
"Connor and Danny are two of the toughest at bats in the country, and I mean that," said Lopes sophomore first baseman Zach Yorke, who hit .368 last season to be a Freshman All-American. "All fall, I faced them and I still couldn't figure them out even at the end of the fall."
But Yorke knew what to do with three consecutive looks at breaking balls in his first at bat of the season. When the third one was left over the plate, Yorke crushed a high-arching, three-run home run to right field over the wall's "2023" that signifies GCU's third consecutive WAC regular-season championship. After tying Tim Salmon's 1987 GCU freshman record with 61 RBIs, Yorke jolted a full house to get a jump on his 2024 total."If I get a hanging off-speed in the middle of the plate, I tend to be on time for it," said Yorke, the 6-foot-2, 295-pound lefthander who was later walked and hit by a pitch in the back.
"This was awesome. The team was veteran-led last year. Seeing those guys move on and knowing that I'm a leader on this team, it's good to know we can come out here and compete with a team like Georgetown."
The Hoyas featured an eight-senior, physical lineup that Avitia attacked with a three-pitch mix, featuring his usually dominant fastball and the slider he developed throughout the fall.
Avitia battled out of the first-inning jam with 26 pitches to limit Georgetown to a 1-0 lead but then worked economically with 42 pitches over the next four innings. He faced one last two-on, two-out threat in the sixth inning but induced a fly out to the deepest part of the park on his 88th pitch."When he becomes a true three-pitch guy, it's going to be even harder to hit him," Wallis said. "We've got such high expectations that he goes six innings and gives up one run and everyone's like, 'What can he do better?'
"He's a competitor. When he gets punched, he punches back. He doesn't let a little bit of adversity affect him. It was just a great performance."
Team offense produced five runs on five hits for the Lopes, starting with senior left fielder Tyler Wilson's leadoff walk, a Georgetown error and junior third baseman Eli Paton's sacrifice bunt to set up Yorke's ninth career home run.
GCU used another combination of a Hoyas error and a walk (to Yorke) to set up designated hitter Beau Ankeney, who lined an opposite-field single for his first career hit after going 0 for 6 in 2022 and redshirting 2023.Ankeney, a Desert Vista High School graduate from Phoenix, went 3 for 4 to start his third GCU year, just as his older brother, Eli, burst onto the scene with a third-year 2.68 ERA after one appearance in his first two years.
Yorke said Ankeney probably had the best fall of any GCU hitter.
"Big Beau has shown all fall, January and February that he can hit," Wallis said. "He's the perfect guy to back up Zach because he can hit a double or a home run, or he can also use the right side of the field like he showed tonight."
GCU produced its final run in the sixth by moving runners again to follow up Ankeney's leadoff double to the left-field corner. Sophomore shortstop Emilio Barreras bunted Ankeney to third and junior catcher John Sheehan scored him on a suicide squeeze bunt.
That 5-1 lead was turned over to Mattison, who threw his filthy change-up for about three-fourths of his pitches. Mattison admittedly went from antsy to anxious Friday, but he settled in quickly when he drew a grounder for his first batter and then struck out five consecutive batters on 18 pitches.After allowing a ninth-inning run on two doubles and a bunt single, Mattison ended the game with his seventh strikeout to a batter representing the potential tying run. The change-up is a result of about five years of work after being primarily a fastball pitcher.
"This game is everything I dreamed of since I was 4 years old," Mattison said. "Being out here with these guys means a lot. That was probably my first time coming out of the bullpen since I was 10 years old, but I loved it. I loved the energy, and I loved the crowd here at Brazell (Field)."
GCU will continue the multi-site MLB Desert Invitational with a 6 p.m. Saturday game on MLB Network against USC at Salt River Fields. The Trojans are in their second year under former GCU head coach Andy Stankiewicz, who led 341 wins in 11 Lopes seasons with Wallis as an assistant for nine years.
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Team Stats
Pitching:
W: Avitia, Daniel (1-0)
L: Carson Frye (0-1)
S: Mattison, Connor (1)
Batting:
2B: Derek Smith 1 ; Jake Hyde 1 ; Michael Eze 1 ; Christian Ficca 1
RBI: Jake Hyde 1 ; Christian Ficca 1
Base Running:
RUNS: Derek Smith 1 ; Michael Eze 1
Batting:
2B: Ankeney, Beau 1
HR: Yorke, Zach 1
RBI: Yorke, Zach 3 ; Ankeney, Beau 1 ; Sheehan, John 1
SH: Paton, Eli 1 ; Barreras, Emilio 1 ; Sheehan, John 1
Base Running:
RUNS: Wilson, Tyler 1 ; Verdusco, Cade 2 ; Yorke, Zach 1 ; Ankeney, Beau 1
SB: Pelc, Eddy 1
HBP: Yorke, Zach 1
Game Leaders
AB
4
R
1
H
3
RBI
1
AB
2
R
1
H
1
RBI
3
AB
3
R
1
H
0
RBI
0
Players Mentioned
INF
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RHP
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INF
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RHP
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/ BaseballGCU Baseball - WAC Tournament vs. Utah Tech - Highlights
Thursday, May 22
Baseball at Stanford - Barreras' game-winning double
Saturday, May 10
Baseball vs. Arizona (5/6/25) - Yorke homers twice to break record
Wednesday, May 07
GCU Baseball - Eli Paton walk-off single vs. UTA
Saturday, April 26