Tourney-opening loss requires 5-win run from GCU

Thursday, May 23

Mesa, Ariz.

1:25 p.m.

Grand Canyon

34-22

Tarleton State

30-28

Tarleton State

Grand Canyon

Photo by: David Kadlubowski

5/23/2024 5:24:00 PM | Baseball, Paul Coro

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Lopes return to Hohokam Stadium on Thursday night to face UT Rio Grande Valley

By: Paul Coro

MESA, Ariz. – If Grand Canyon ends the weekend as WAC Tournament champions, the Lopes will have done it the hard way.

The top-seeded Lopes suffered a 4-2 upset to No. 5 Tarleton State on Thursday afternoon at Hohokam Stadium, where GCU must win five consecutive games to take a tourney title.

That mission will begin with the Lopes (34-22) returning Thursday night for their first elimination game against No. 7 UT Rio Grande Valley (28-24), which will begin 40 minutes after a California Baptist-Utah Valley elimination game ends.

"We're the best team in this tournament," GCU head coach Gregg Wallis said. "We proved it all year long. We won the league by five games. I've seen a lot of teams lose a game and come back and do special things. We just made it a lot harder on ourselves."

The Lopes matched their season high with 13 runners left on base (also March 19 at Arizona), including not scoring with runners on first and second base and one out in the eighth and first and second with no outs in the ninth. They went 1 for 13 with runners in scoring position Thursday after ranking 23rd nationally with a .311 batting average this season.

While regular-season champion GCU received two rounds of byes, Tarleton State (30-28) won its third WAC Tournament game in three days Thursday by scoring a run in each inning from the fourth to the seventh.

"Weird things can happen in this tournament," Wallis said. "I tried to prepare the guys for that. Same thing happened to us last year. They're on their third game and it seems like an advantage for us, but it wasn't.

"We just didn't take good at bats. They put some pressure on us. All ones (singles). Their pitchers did a good job, and our swings were too big early. I thought with our experience that we would understand th Dustin Crenshaw

at this ballpark doesn't play for fly balls, but we didn't."

After scoring its first run on senior catcher Alton Gyselman's RBI sacrifice fly in the second inning, GCU tied the game at 2-2 in the bottom of the fifth inning on a two-out, pinch-hit single that senior Dustin Crenshaw pulled into right field.

But Tarleton State continued its single-laden success with all 10 of its hits being singles Thursday after peppering opponents for 25 singles among 29 hits on the tournament's first two days.

The last five of those singles pushed across the go-ahead run in the sixth inning and a two-hit RBI single past diving second baseman Elijah Buries for a 4-2 Texans lead in the seventh inning.

Lopes freshman right-hander Hunter Watkins shut down Tarleton State over the final two innings to give the conference's leading offense a chance of rallying.

In the bottom of the eighth, Crenshaw drew a lead-off walk and senior right fielder Eddy Pelc added a one-out single before they were stranded.

In the bottom of the ninth, GCU's lead-off batter reached base for the fifth consecutive inning when senior left fielder Tyler Wilson picked up his first hit on a liner off closer Jack Driskell's leg. Senior center fielder Cade Verdusco followed with a full-count single to right before sophomore first baseman Zach Yorke lined out to left field and senior third baseman Eli Paton struck out looking.

The Lopes got a reprieve when Crenshaw loaded the bases on a Texans throwing error, but Driskell drew a game-ending chopper from Buries (2 for 5) to send GCU to the late game against UTRGV. The Lopes have gone 2-4 since clinching their fourth consecutive regular-season championship.

In a game that began 85 minutes later than scheduled because of a long first game, freshman left-hander Grant Richardson started for GCU and recorded his seventh consecutive game with six strikeouts or more. He allowed two runs, the first coming on a steal of home in the fourth inning and the second run followed a balk and a sacrifice bunt.

Tarleton State used 5 1/3 innings of bullpen Thursday, giving the Texans 18 1/3 relief innings in their three wins on "guts," according to head coach Fuller Smith.

"A lot of guys came back after they'd thrown multiple innings the last two days and just kept it there," Smith said. "We were able to scratch and claw. We stole home, which I think was a big moment in the game. I think it was a momentum shift."