The University of Nevada, Las Vegas baseball team defeated Grand Canyon University 14-8 on April 12, securing a series victory at Brazell Field at GCU Ballpark in Phoenix.
The win marks an important result for UNLV as it strengthens their position in the conference and demonstrates their ability to respond offensively throughout the game.
UNLV started strong with Marcos Rosales hitting a leadoff triple in the first inning, followed by Drew Barragan’s RBI double. Jonny Rodriguez added a two-RBI single in the third. After Grand Canyon narrowed the gap with a home run from Jose Lopez, UNLV answered back with five runs in the fifth inning, highlighted by Ayden Garcia’s two-run homer and key hits from Jack Salmon and Jayden Hertel. Despite Grand Canyon’s efforts to close the deficit, including a two-run home run by Trevor Schmidt, UNLV continued to build its lead through consistent offense across multiple innings.
Head Coach Stan Stolte said: “Was a solid week, went on the road and won three out of four, beat a ranked team at their yard and won a weekend conference series. We have so many areas to clean up though, but we’ll take the results. The game we lost on Saturday, there aren’t too many teams in the country that could have beat that guy (Chase Frey); he was dominating. Great to have Josh Donegan back in the mix, he will help us.”
Jack Salmon drove home four runs while going 3-for-5 at bat; Nin Burns II also had three hits and scored three times. Ayden Garcia hit his seventh home run of the season as part of his two-hit performance. Jayden Hertel had nine hits over four games during this week’s road trip.
Pitching contributions included starter Josh Donegan throwing his longest outing this season at 3.2 innings without allowing any walks and striking out two batters; Reese Lueck earned his second win after pitching 2.1 innings; Jase Evangelista collected his second save by finishing out three innings on relief work.
Looking ahead, UNLV will conclude its five-game road trip against Utah Tech on Tuesday.
