- Photo By David Cohen, BHEphotos
8
Grand Canyon GCU 6-9
9
Winner UC Riverside UCR 9-8
Grand Canyon GCU
6-9
8
Final
9
UC Riverside UCR
9-8
Winner
Score By Periods
Team 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 R H E
Grand Canyon GCU 0 0 2 0 2 1 0 2 0 0 0 1 0 0 8 20 1
UC Riverside UCR 5 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 9 19 1

W: Sawyer, AJ (1-0) L: Udall, Hayden (0-1)

Game Recap: Baseball |

Taylor Supplies Winning Hit as Highlanders Outlast GCU in 14 Innings

Riverside, Calif. – UC Riverside (9-8) needed 14 innings to decide the final game of its ten-game home stand against Grand Canyon (6-9) on Wednesday, as just before the rain began pouring down, a single to left center by junior Yeager Taylor brought junior Justin Mannens home to give the Highlanders a 9-8 win.

UCR finished with a season-high 19 hits, led by freshman Brenden Avventino's 4-of-6 mark at the plate. Avventino's final hit of the day nearly won it for the Highlanders in the bottom of the 13th, before the potential game-tying run from senior Cody Sporrer was stopped short of home plate.

Mannens would open the 14th inning up with a double to right field. That was followed by walks for both senior Colby Schultz and junior Anthony Lepre, which loaded the bases.

After starting the day 1-of-5, Taylor stepped up and provided the heroics that ended one of the longest games in the Highlanders' recent memory, totaling more than five hours. The single, which stretched just over the glove of the GCU shortstop, gave Taylor his first RBI since UCR's season-opener against Washington State.

The game nearly came to a close several innings earlier, as the Lopes broke a 7-7 tie with a run in the top of the 12th. However, with two outs on the board and runners on first and third, the Highlanders would stay alive thanks to a wild pitch, tying the game at 8-8 on a Mannens run.

The Highlanders got out to a fast start to the game, putting up five runs in the first inning alone. Mannens, Schultz and Sporrer all finished with a season-high three hits apiece. Redshirt senior Tony Gudino knocked his first home run of his career towards left field in the bottom of the sixth, giving the Highlanders a 7-5 advantage as they tried to hold off the resilient Lopes.

Both sides utilized a huge chunk of their pitching staffs, as GCU would go through nine pitchers, while UCR utilized seven. Senior AJ Sawyer (1-0) earned his first win of the year.

UC Riverside heads back on the road this weekend for a four-game series at Nevada, beginning on Friday at 3:00 p.m.