You have to do the little things right when playing good teams.
A talented Grand Canyon University (12-4) squad came into PK Park on Tuesday for a midweek meeting with the No. 9 Ducks (14-3).
Oregon didn’t do the little things right and allowed baserunning blunders, botched pickoff attempts and a lack of timely hitting to ruin its aspirations at a 12-game winning streak.
GCU, however, played a much cleaner game (especially in crucial moments) and earned an impressive 4-2 win.
“We didn’t get [hits] with two outs,” Oregon head coach Mark Wasikowski. “We’ve been through the stretch where we’ve been winning. We’ve been getting [those hits] and we didn’t get [them] today.”
Everything leading up to the contest said it would be a barn-burner. Two high-powered offenses were set to face two pitching staffs that were recovering from winning three-game series the weekend prior.
So, naturally, only six runs crossed on Tuesday. Unpredictable. Funky. Baseball.
For the second time in four games, Mason Neville launched a leadoff homer to put the Ducks on the board first. He took Gunnar Penzkover’s first offering of the night out to left-center for his team-leading 10th bomb of the year. It tipped off Eddy Pelc’s glove, but trickled over the fence anyways. When Oregon starter Ian Umlandt toed the rubber for the top of the second, he already had an early lead to protect.
Umlandt faced a two-on, one-out jam in the third, but Josh Wakefield chopped into a 4-3 double play to end the threat. Umlandt allowed three hits in his first trip through GCU’s lineup, but kept the Lopes scoreless until the seventh.
Oregon, however, failed to add on early, stranding a pair of runners in both the second and third innings. Neville’s leadoff shot remained the contest’s lone run entering the fifth.
Penzkover’s day ended after four very good innings of work. He only threw 63 pitches and allowed just the lone run on four hits while fanning four.
Another pair of Ducks reached in the fifth, but a Maddox Molony strikeout ended the frame. Molony stranded four in the loss.
GCU finally got to Umlandt in the sixth. His first pitch of the frame left the yard courtesy of Carson Ohland’s second homer of the season. A few pitches later, Marcus Galavan doubled to left to end Umlandt’s day. He was already at 86 pitches after six innings and the decision to stretch him into the seventh burnt Oregon right away.
“He’d given up zero runs,” Wasikowski said of sending Umlandt out for a seventh frame.
He was throwing a shutout and his pitch count was low, that’s why we sent him back out there.”
The runner came around to score on a botched pickoff attempt from reliever Seth Mattox and GCU took the lead in its three-run seventh frame. Cole Stokes came in and immediately relented an RBI single to the Lopes’ leadoff man. Oregon used three different pitchers in the inning as the Ducks fell behind in a game for the first time since Feb 28.
When the poor defensive outing finally ended, Umlandt’s final statline read 6.0 innings, two runs on seven hits, five strikeouts and two walks. What was a brilliant outing through six was tainted by a seventh that he arguably shouldn’t have seen.
“He usually doesn’t beat himself,” Wasikpwski said of Umlandt. “For a midweek starter, or any starter at all, to go out there and give up one run, or no runs or two runs on an entire start, that’s a good start. He gives us that pretty much every time he [goes] out there.”
Carter Garate led off the next inning with a walk and took second on a balk, giving Oregon a great chance to respond. A Neville single could have put a pair of runners on for the Ducks, but Garate was thrown out at the plate by a mile instead, killing the rally opportunity.
“I think that was probably a mistake,” Waskiowski said of the play at the plate. “And everybody knew that and even Coach Hinkle knew that. I’ve been over there many times and made a mistake like that… even with that, we could have still easily won the game.”
A two-out single from Jacob Walsh (2-5) brought a Neville to third, but he too would be left on the bases in what ended up being an empty frame.
The Ducks recorded nine hits, but couldn’t find timely knocks when they needed them. Oregon stranded 11 total runners and was 5-17 with runners on base on Tuesday.
A good piece of two-out hitting from Marcus Galvan (3-4, RBI) plated another in the eighth to increase the Lopes’ lead. His timely hitting served as somewhat of a gut punch to an Oregon team lacking the clutch hitting gene on Tuesday.
Garate (1-3, RBI) brought the Ducks’ first run since the first inning home with a ground-rule double in the eighth to bring Oregon within two, but the hole ended up being too big as Oregon fell for the first time since Feb 21.
There are, however, two silver linings for the Ducks. First, Chase Meggers pinch-hit in the ninth (a flyout) for his first at–bat of the season. Oregon’s primary catching option from a season ago appears to be ready to return after an injury has kept him in the dugout so far in 2025.
The other bit of good news is that the Ducks get another crack at the Lopes on Wednesday night at 4:05 p.m.
