BELLEVUE, Wash. – (May 19) Seattle U baseball closed out the 2018 regular-season Saturday afternoon at Bannerwood Park, falling to Western Athletic Conference regular-season champ Grand Canyon, 7-5.
The Redhawks move to 32-21 overall and finish WAC play at 13-11. They earn the fourth seed in next week's WAC Thampionship at Hohokam Stadium in Mesa, Ariz., and will face fifth-seed Northern Colorado in the tournament opener on Wednesday, May 23 at 3 p.m.
The Lopes (33-22, 19-5 WAC) struck in the first inning for the third straight game and would never trail. They scored once in the first, once in the third and three times in the fifth before the Redhawks found some life with a Sean Sutton RBI-single in the fifth.
GCU added a sixth run in the sixth before Seattle U made it 6-2 with a Cameron Sterne RBI-double in the home half of the inning.
The Redhawks would rally in the seventh with three runs on two hits, two walks and two wild pitches. But they could get nothing going in the final two frames and the Lopes tacked on a seventh run in the ninth.
Nick Meservey took the loss for the Redhawks while Ethan Evanko earned the win for GCU.
Austin Lively finished 4-for-5 while seniors Sutton and Sterne added two hits each. Fellow seniors Dalton Hurd, Curtis Perrin and Lucas Denney also each collected a hit in their final game at Bannerwood Park.
For more information about the 2018 WAC Tournament, visit wacsports.com.