Late errors cost Arizona baseball in home loss to Grand Canyon
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Among the many things that went well for Arizona in a pair of wins in Las Vegas over the weekend was its defense and the ability to make the most of scoring chances. The inability to do one of those things early and another late ended up resulting in another loss to Grand Canyon.
The Wildcats (3-9) fell 7-5 to GCU on Tuesday night at Hi Corbett Field, their seventh loss in the last nine meetings with the Antelopes.
GCU scored three times in the top of the 9th to break a 4-4 tie, capitalizing on a pair of UA errors. But while coach Chip Hale was upset at those mistakes, he was more upset about some missed opportunities early in the game.
“We start out slow, we don’t get runs in, we have guys on third base with less than two out and we don’t score,” Hale said. “Those are big runs when you get to the lake in the game. We wouldn’t have been in that situation (in the 9th).”
Arizona, which was 4 for 5 with runners on third base and less than two outs in wins over Vanderbilt and UC Irvine, stranded four runners in the first two innings and found itself down 4-1 before rallying to tie it with one in the 3rd and two in the 4th.
It was still tied in the 9th when GCU had runners on the corners and 1 out and Marcus Galvan laid down a squeeze bunt that Arizona first baseman Tony Lira charged and threw home but it got past catcher Roman Meyers.
“Tony made a great play on the safety squeeze,” Hale said. “Did he throw it a little high, maybe, but we got to catch the ball. He did a great job at crashing, and the guy was out if we catch it.”
The Wildcats looked like they’d kept the damage to a minimum but then shortstop Cash Brennan misplayed a grounder one what would have been the third out, extending the inning for GCU’s Cannon Peery to hit a 2-run double.
“It’s a young error,” Hale said of Brennan, a true freshman. “It’s one of those things, we talk to infielders all the time at every level, that when you go to your left, it’s an easy play for you, especially when you can have a force at second. So you’re going to your left and you just don’t watch the ball into your glove. Did it take a funny hop? Probably, late in the game ball is going to, you have to know (the ground is) hard. There’s a lot of marks in the ground, it’s going to happen.”
Arizona got one back in the bottom of the 9th on a solo home run by pinch hitter Jackson Forbes, and brought the tying run to the plate with one out. But Nate Novitske—who had another two hits, including a 2-run single that tied the game in the 4th—struck out and then Tony Lira’s deep fly to left center was chased down at the warning track.
Novitske was one of four Arizona players with at least two hits. Lira was 3 for 5 with an RBI double, while Brennan and Beau Sylvester had two hits apiece. The Wildcats finished with 10 hits but had only one over the final five innings, that being Forbes’ homer.
“We’re young, I think we started four or five freshmen today,” said Novitske, a redshirt freshman who is hitting .417. “We just didn’t execute. I mean, my at bat in the last inning there, that was a bad at bat, but that’s something I’m going to learn from and hopefully be better this weekend.”
Arizona is back at it Friday when it begins a 3-game series with Fresno State.
