Extra-inning barrage evens series

Friday, May 17

Orem, Utah

5 p.m. (MST)

Grand Canyon

33-21, 22-7

Utah Valley

28-26, 18-11

Grand Canyon

Utah Valley

5/17/2024 9:09:00 PM | Baseball

Box Score

Lopes force 9th-inning tie, strike for 6 in 10th at Utah Valley

By: Josh Hauser

OREM, Utah — Grand Canyon had amassed just two runs on four hits through eight innings, yielding a one-run deficit headed to the ninth. The Lopes bats awakened in a big way, pushing the game to extras with a run in the ninth and exploding for six runs on five hits in the 10th to beat Utah Valley 9-3 on Friday night.

Ten Lopes had been retired consecutively entering the ninth, until junior third baseman Eli Paton jolted the offense awake with a leadoff single. That started a string of three straight singles, including a game-tying knock by senior right fielder Eddy Pelc, to force extras.

Freshman Hunter Watkins held Utah Valley in check by retiring the first eight batters he faced and stranding a runner on second in the ninth.

The floodgates burst open for GCU's offense in the 10th with the first six batters reaching. The big blows came on a two-run double from Paton and a three-run triple from Pelc to put the game out of reach. GCU tallied six runs in the 10th, its highest scoring extra inning since at least 1989.

"It was nice to finally settle in and get some good swings there," GCU head coach Gregg Wallis said. "Great at bats leading up to Eli clearing the bases and then Eddy doing it. Just two really big swings. Eli leading off the ninth was huge as well. Him getting it going with a leadoff hit in the ninth was a big reason why we were able to win this game."

For Watkins role on the mound, he was credited with his second career victory. He blew past his previous strikeouts career high of five by retiring eight of the 14 batters he faced via strikeout.

"We know Hunter's good, but that's about as sharp as he's been all year," Wallis said. "He's big and he's downhill. The type of offense that they have, where they're trying to lift, it's tough because the ball is coming so downhill. He was outstanding. He had all of his pitches going, he was aggressive, filling up the strike zone, burying breaking balls when he had count leverage. He got our helmet after the game, the guys recognized too that he was a big reason we came back and won this game."

Watkins' relief appearance came on the heels of sophomore righty Isaac Lyon tossing six innings of three-run baseball with six strikeouts and no walks.

GCU played only its second extra-inning game of the season but ran an extra-inning win streak to five dating back to 2023.

The Lopes' locked up the conference's No. 1 seed for the upcoming WAC Tournament nearly a week ago, but Wallis wanted to see GCU's competitive edge return to snap a three-game losing streak.

"We're in an interesting spot where we've already won the league and we know what our seed is, but we still want to compete," Wallis said. "We don't want to lose that. The coaches have felt that we've hit a bit of a lull the last couple of games. To get in a tight ballgame where we had to compete and it felt like a playoff atmosphere and (Utah Valley) is playing for something, it was good to get into a competitive ballgame where we really felt like we had to compete."

Senior second baseman Elijah Buries was one of the three runs to score on Pelc's 10th-inning triple. With his 155th career run scored, Buries became GCU's new leader in the Division I era, surpassing Trevor Blake's mark of 154 runs set in 1992-95.

On top of looking to finish the regular season on a winning note, GCU is attempting to win its 15th straight WAC series. Utah Valley is looking to join GCU with a double bye in the conference tournament by clinching the No. 2 seed with a Saturday victory, though the Wolverines could fall into the No. 2 with a loss if other things break their way.

The regular-season finale has an updated first pitch time of 10:30 a.m. (Phoenix time).