Freshmen fuel offense in loss to Washington State

Wednesday, April 17

Phoenix, Ariz.

7 p.m.

Grand Canyon

20-17

Washington State

18-17

Washington State

Grand Canyon

Photo by: David Kadlubowski

4/17/2024 10:28:00 PM | Baseball, Paul Coro

Box Score Photo Gallery

Peery homers in 1st start before Neville delivers 2-run hit in GCU's 3-0 start

By: Paul Coro

Amid a 10-day stretch with eight games, Grand Canyon head coach Gregg Wallis started four freshmen Wednesday night with three of them making starting debuts and another getting his third at GCU Ballpark.

The future of the Lopes was rewarding with the four going 6 for 15 at the plate with three RBIs, but the rest of the lineup only knocked in one run for GCU to lose 6-4 to Washington State.

Lopes freshman designated hitter Cannon Peery walloped his first home run in seventh career at bat for an early 3-0 lead, but GCU (20-17) went 2 for 13 with runners in scoring position vs. 10 for 23 the rest of the time to allow the Cougars (18-17) to end a four-game losing streak.

"Whenever you get 12 hits and only score four runs, that's a sign of a bad offensive game," Wallis said. "You didn't do enough. Part of that was that we made the decision late in the game that we couldn't play for a tie because we just physically didn't have enough arms left to go into a deep game."

Trailing 6-4, the Lopes opened the bottom of the eighth inning with freshman catcher Marcus Galvan capping a 2-for-4 starting debut with a double to the right-field corner.

GCU freshman shortstop Cooper Neville, who delivered a two-run single for a 3-0, second-inning lead, was then hit by a pitch for a two-on, no-out situation where the Lopes normally bunt. Playing for more, junior center fielder hit into the Lopes' third double play of the game after having just gone 11 games without a double play until Tuesday.

The Lopes did not score again after junior right fielder Michael Diaz gave them a 4-3 lead with a solo home run to the right-field bullpen on a 1-2 breaking ball in the fourth inning.

Connor Peery

In addition to Peery's and Galvan's first start and Neville's third start, freshman second baseman Troy Sanders followed up getting a key hit in Tuesday's win against No. 21 Arizona by going 1 for 4 in his first start.

"I thought our young guys did awesome," The guys who hadn't played much were the ones who really kept us in the ball game."

Peery received texts from teammates that he was starting but remained unsure until he saw the lineup card in Tim Salmon Clubhouse earlier Wednesday. The 6-foot-3, 210-pound Mountain Ridge High School graduate took the first two pitches he saw.

"I was looking to get a good swing off," Peery said. "He threw it up in the zone, and I just got the barrel to it. I wasn't sure if it was going to get out, but it snuck over. That was a super-cool moment.

"I knew I hit it well, but it went so high to where I wasn't sure and the stadium kind of went quiet."

After that and left-handed hitter Neville getting a two-run single off southpaw starter Spencer Jones, GCU was poised for another big offensive inning in the bottom of the third.

Senior third baseman Elijah Buries double to the right-field corner and senior left fielder Tyler Wilson put runners at the corners with his 200th career hit, a single to right field.

After sophomore first baseman Zach Yorke struck out for the first out, Washington State catcher Will Cresswell's pickoff throw to third base sailed high into left-field foul territory but home plate umpire Jason Rogers stopped play and sent back the runners for umpire's interference.

Rogers ruled that Cresswell made inadvertent contact with Rogers when he went into his throwing motion, making the play dead. Peery then hit into an inning-ending double play.

Washington State used eight pitchers, twice as many as GCU. The Lopes started Yavapai College transfer Barrett Skaugrud, a right-hander who had made four relief appearances of two innings or fewer this season.

Skaugrud shut out out the Cougars on one hit through three innings, but got into fourth-inning trouble with back-to-back hits to start the inning. He was bailed out when Yorke threw out the lead runner at home and added his fourth strikeout, but he then allowed a full-count, three-run home run after being ahead 1-2.

"Barrett pitched great, and he's in a spot where he had to extend from where he's been trained for because of the situation with injuries and two mid-week games," Wallis said. "He almost got out of it."

The Lopes lost their 4-3 lead in the sixth inning, when three consecutive singles were followed by three hit batsmen on three consecutive pitches. Washington State took a 6-4 lead and kept it over the final 3 1/2 scoreless innings.

The Lopes stay home with a quick return to conference play, starting a three-game series against Utah Tech on Friday night. GCU is tied for first place at 11-4 in the WAC with California Baptist. CBU plays a weekend series at Abilene Christian, which is tied with Utah Valley one game behind GCU and CBU.

"We need to put this game behind us quickly, move forward to Friday night and get healthy," Wallis said. "Eli (Paton) went out (Tuesday) and hopefully he's doing better. Dustin Crenshaw is hurting. We think we have Cade (Verdusco) back for the weekend, but coming back from his hamstring injury, we didn't want to push him too hard today because we want him fresh to play Friday, Saturday, Sunday."