PROVO, Utah — BYU baseball concludes its road trip in the Valley of the Sun with a game at Grand Canyon on Monday at 1 p.m. PDT.
| BYU (20-21) at Grand Canyon (26-17) | Brazell Field at Ballpark | Phoenix, AZ | |||
| Date & Time (PDT) | Watch | Listen | Live Stats |
| Monday, April 28 at 1 p.m. | ESPN+ | BYU Radio 107.9/BYU Radio App | Follow Here |
WEEKLY RECAP. BYU enters Monday's game looking to snap a three-game skid following losses to Arizona State (3-8, 4-12, 6-16) at Phoenix Municipal Stadium April 24-26. The Cougars have won each of their last four midweek games with wins over Utah Valley each of the last two weeks (15-7, 9-3), a 19-1 defeat of Utah Tech in St. George on April 8 and a 12-10 win over Oral Roberts on April 1.
BAT CATS. Despite the losses over the weekend, BYU’s offense continues to be led by five players hitting north of .300 in Bryker Hurdsman, Brock Watkins, Keoni Painter, Luke Anderson and Tate Gambill. Hurdsman leads the Cougars in average (.340) and doubles (14). First baseman Cooper Vest leads BYU in home runs (14), RBI (48), runs scored (45) and slugging percentage (.632). Anderson leads BYU in hits (53) while second in RBI (45) and third in slugging (.512) and homers (8).
SERIES HISTORY. Monday marks the 78th all-time meeting between BYU and GCU and the 41st time the two have met in Phoenix. The series is squared 20-20 when playing at Brazell Field, though the two teams haven’t faced off in Phoenix since a three-game series as Western Athletic Conference foes April 10-11, 1998. The Lopes took two of three in that series (8-16, 12-11, 11-10).
BYU leads the all-time series 44-33 and has won seven of the last 11 meetings. The first 30 meetings came with GCU as an NAIA member (1976-89). The forty-seven since have come with the Lopes playing Division I baseball, including 24 WAC games when BYU and GCU were conference foes (1995-98). The Cougars held the WAC series advantage 19-5.
BYU and GCU split the series in 2024 with the Lopes taking the first meeting, 6-2, in game three of the MLB Desert Invitational at Mesa, Arizona’s Sloan Park. The Cougars avenged that defeat with four home runs in an 8-7 win on May 14, 2024 in Provo. Luke Anderson led the way for BYU in that game with two homers and three RBI on 3-of-5 hitting.
KNOW THE FOE. GCU enters Monday’s game after a 2-1 series win over UT Arlington (8-7, 7-2, 5-17) April 25-27 at Brazell Field. Third-year head coach Gregg Wallis has the Lopes at second in the WAC standings behind only Utah Valley. The Lopes were picked to win the WAC in the 2025 Preseason Poll with five preseason all-conference selections in infielders Zach Yorke, Eli Paton and Emilio Barreras as well as outfielder Eddy Pelc and pitcher Isaac Lyon.
The Lopes are led in batting average and hits by outfielder Josh Wakefield (.368, 49), RBI by outfielder Michael Diaz (41) and co-led in home runs by Diaz and Pelc’s nine a-piece.
The Lopes’ nonconference resume includes five wins over Big 12 teams in Arizona and Arizona State along with a sweep of Texas Tech March 7-9 in Phoenix. GCU also has upsets over then-No. 9 Oregon (4-2) and No. 23 Nebraska (3-1). The Lopes also dropped a pair of games to the nation’s current No. 3 team, Oregon State, by a combined four runs (4-6, 1-3).
Despite an early exit from the 2024 WAC Tournament, GCU secured an NCAA Tournament at-large bid and made the most of it with an upset of host Arizona and Dallas Baptist at the Tucson Regional before falling to West Virginia in the Regional Championship game.
UP NEXT. After five straight road games, BYU will return home for a three-game Big 12 series with Kansas State May 1-3 at Miller Park. Thursday and Friday games are set for 6:30 p.m. MDT, while Saturday's first pitch is 1:30 p.m. Each game can be found on ESPN+ and BYU Radio.