Ole Miss rally sends GCU to must-win regional game

Friday, May 16

Tucson, Ariz.

7 p.m.

Grand Canyon

46-7

#21 Ole Miss

38-17

Grand Canyon

Ole Miss

Photo by: Bryce Wheeler

5/16/2025 11:13:00 PM | Softball, Paul Coro

Box Score Photo Gallery

Lopes led 3-0 before losing 7-4 to go to elimination tilt vs. Santa Clara

By: Paul Coro

TUCSON, Ariz. – History could not repeat itself with Grand Canyon and Ole Miss not having a player in the lineups of their previous meeting at an NCAA regional.

But it sure did echo, when No. 24 GCU repeated a lead and eventual loss to No. 21 Ole Miss on Friday night at Hillenbrand Stadium. The nation's longest active winning streak of 23 games ended in a 7-4 Lopes loss to the Rebels.

Second-seeded GCU (46-7) will play fourth-seeded Santa Clara (32-21) in a 3:30 p.m. elimination game at Hillenbrand for the right to play another elimination game at 6 against the 1 p.m. winner between host Arizona and Ole Miss.

After leading 5-0 and losing 9-5 to Ole Miss in the 2022 Los Angeles Regional, these Lopes took a lead deeper into Friday night's game with a 3-0, fifth-inning advantage before a Rebels five-run bottom half of the fifth inning sent them to a 7-4 win.

Emily Gonazlez home run celebration

GCU staggered Ole Miss with 3 2/3 shutout innings from senior starting right-hander Meghan Golden and bigtime at bats from junior designated player Emily Gonzalez and graduate left fielder Mia Weckel.

Gonzalez led off the fourth inning just like she finished the WAC Tournament championship – with a go-ahead home run to straightaway center field. The full-count crank marked Gonzalez's ninth home run in the past 20 games and tied freshman first baseman Jada Cooper for the team's season lead with 12.

"Keeping it going from the WAC Tournament and learning from my last at bat," Gonzalez said of tripling her previous season high for homers. "I knew she was going to throw me a change-up in that situation, so I just saw on the change-up."

That 1-0 lead stood through four innings after GCU junior center fielder Sydney McCray ran down a potential RBI hit in the left-center field gap.

The Lopes opened the fifth inning with two on and no outs when sophomore catcher Tinley Lucas walked and McCray beat out an infield single. With two outs, the left-handed hitting Weckel cranked her team-leading 12th double of the season for a 3-0 GCU lead off Ole Miss southpaw Brianna Lopez.

Mia Weckel

"I knew she was probably going to try to throw me in," Weckel said. "I knew I had two fast girls on base, so I just wanted to stay in and pull it, and it worked out."

GCU even had more scoring chances early, putting two on base with no outs in the first without scoring and getting a third-inning leadoff single wiped out when a hit-and-run became a double play with a pop-up.

The Lopes still tightened the game to 5-4 in the sixth by scratching out a run with a Cooper leadoff walk being followed by an error, sacrifice and RBI grounder by sophomore catcher Tinley Lucas.

"That's a really, really good team," Ole Miss head coach Jamie Trachsel said of GCU. "They're well-coached. They're tough outs. They make adjustments. They can put a lot of different kind of balls in play. Obviously, with the surface, they use that pretty well too. I was proud of the resiliency we had."

GCU lost its 3-0 lead in the bottom of the fifth, when the Lopes used three relievers (sophomore Maggie Place, freshman Oakley Vickers and junior Taryn Batterton).

Ole Miss pushed across five runs with its first eight batters having six hits, a walk and a sacrifice. GCU played an error-less game and executed two double plays, but it also did not execute a tag on a Rebels steal of second with a runner also on third.

"Probably our worst inning of the year," Hays said.

It was only the third five-run inning surrendered by the Lopes this season with the other two also coming to top-25 teams, Florida and Arizona.

"Tough game for us, hard to swallow getting beat," Hays said. "We put ourselves in a good position to win the game. We've been winning games like that all year. We'll use Golden. She'll throw four or five innings, and then we'll go with a down-ball girl with Maggie (Place) or Taryn (Batterton). It just didn't work. We didn't pitch well enough to win."

After pulling with one, GCU could not keep the lead there in the sixth, when Ole Miss bunted for singles twice and pushed across both of them late on a two-out single off the Lopes' fifth pitcher, sophomore Alina Satcher in her third appearance of the season.

"We let the game get dirty late on us," Hays said. "We asked for trouble, and we got it."

GCU was unlucky in moments, like when Gonzalez hit a liner that would have made the lead 4-0 if Ole Miss first baseman Persy Llamas hadn't made a quick snag.

The Lopes made one last threat in the seventh with sophomore second baseman Savannah Kirk, the nation's No. 2 hitter at .505, finished a 2-for-4 day with a double.

Weckel nailed a line drive down the left-field line, but Ole Miss third baseman Ashton Lansdell made a diving catch while dragging her left shin across the bag. The game-ending double play pushes GCU to a must-win game against Santa Clara after suffering its first loss since March 22.

"I think we'll bounce back well," Weckel said. "I think it'll be good for us, and we'll have something to fight for."