GCU drops back-and-forth series finale

Sunday, March 3

San Antonio, Texas

12 p.m. (MST)

Grand Canyon

6-5

UTSA

6-6

Grand Canyon

UTSA

Photo by: Mark Sobhani

3/3/2024 3:05:00 PM | Baseball

Box Score

Lopes homered 4 times but surrendered 10 runs to drop series at UTSA

By: Josh Hauser

SAN ANTONIO — Grand Canyon nearly wiggled out of a ninth-inning jam to send Sunday's game to extras, but UTSA walked off with a 10-9 Sunday victory and a series win on a two-out wild pitch.

GCU (6-5) racked up 15 hits and homered four times but allowed 10 runs to the Roadrunners (6-6) in a battle of programs that have combined to win an average of 38.5 games the last two seasons.

Lopes second baseman Dustin Crenshaw forced the late-game tie with an eighth-inning solo home run. It was the senior's first career home run in his 107th career game, capping off a career-best four-hit game.

UTSA led off the ninth inning with a double to put GCU in precarious position. The Lopes used a pair of fielder's choices including an out at home plate to record the first two outs and shift things back in their favor. But in throwing to a pinch-hitting UTSA batter with the bases loaded, the first pitch bounced and nearly got away before the second pitch did get away.

Four of the Lopes' first five batters homered including Crenshaw's game-tying blast. Earlier home runs came on a three-run blast from senior center fielder Cade Verdusco in the second inning and back-to-back fifth-inning homers from junior designated hitter Beau Ankeney and senior left fielder Tyler Wilson. Ankeney's was his team-leading fifth of the season.

After three consecutive two-out singles netted GCU a run in the first, Verdusco's three-run shot staked the Lopes to a 4-0 lead in the second inning.

UTSA quickly got it all back, however, after a four-run, three-hit second inning aided by two walks and a Lopes' error.

The Roadrunners extended their lead in the fourth with a three-run homer, but GCU quickly responded with Ankeney and Wilson's homers knotting the score at 7-7 in the fifth.

UTSA used a four-hit fifth inning to plate two more runs and regain the lead at 9-7.

Lopes sophomore reliever Walter Quinn stabilized things in the late innings and allowed GCU to pull even. Helped by an error, the Lopes scored a run in the sixth before Crenshaw's game-tying solo shot in the eighth.

GCU's 15 hits marked its second-best offensive showing of the season behind an 18-hit showing against Ohio State on Feb. 20. The Lopes' logged their first four-homer game since doing so at Abilene Christian on April 14 of last season.

Quinn was the Lopes' most effective pitcher on the day, tossing four innings. In his second tough-luck loss of the season, he surrendered just one run which scored on a wild pitch by senior righty Shawn Triplett after Quinn had exited the game.

Before heading back to Texas to being WAC play at Stephen F. Austin next week, the Lopes will briefly return to Phoenix for a two-game midweek set against Oregon that begins on Tuesday at 6 p.m.