Grand Canyon Antelopes baseball

Grand Canyon Antelopes
2024 Grand Canyon Antelopes baseball team
Founded	1953
Overall record	499–542–2
University	Grand Canyon University
Head coach	Gregg Wallis (2nd season)
Conference	Western Athletic Conference
Location	Phoenix, Arizona
Home stadium	Brazell Field at GCU Ballpark (Capacity: 4,000)
Nickname	Lopes
Colors	Purple, black, and white[1]
NCAA Tournament appearances
2021, 2022, 2024
Conference tournament champions
2021
Regular season conference champions
2015, 2017, 2018, 2021, 2023, 2024
Conference division champions
1998, 2022

The Grand Canyon Antelopes baseball team represents Grand Canyon University, which is located in Phoenix, Arizona. The Antelopes, also known as the Lopes, are an NCAA Division I college baseball program competing in the Western Athletic Conference. They were in Division I from 1991 to 1998, the final four seasons with the Western Athletic Conference, and returned in 2014 with the WAC.

The Grand Canyon Antelopes play all home games on campus at Brazell Field at GCU Ballpark. Over their 16 discontinuous seasons in the Western Athletic Conference, GCU has won six regular-season titles including five of the last six completed seasons.

Since the program's inception in 1953, 15 Lopes have gone on to play in Major League Baseball, highlighted by 1993 AL Rookie of the Year and 2002 World Series champion Tim Salmon.

Dr. Dave Brazell founded Grand Canyon's baseball program and it began play in 1953.^[2] The team lost its first game to Phoenix College on March 23, 1953. The team won its first game against Eastern Arizona College on March 27, 1954.^[3]

The Lopes won four NAIA National Championships in the 1980s: 1980, 1981, 1982, and 1986.^[4]

GCU hired Andy Stankiewicz on April 25, 2011.^[5]

Stankiewicz led the program in its final two seasons at the Division II level, the duration of the four-year transition period to the Division I level, and to the school's first two NCAA Division I tournament appearances.

In his first season, Stankiewicz inherited a team with a losing record and went 27-23 in his first season. In his second season in 2013, Stankiewicz led the Lopes to the D-II College World Series for the first time.^{[citation needed]}

The Lopes found immediate success in 2014, their first back at the D-I level. GCU finished second in the WAC standings.^[6]

GCU won its first outright WAC regular-season championship in 2015.^[7] The Lopes won the 2017, 2018, 2021 and 2022 WAC regular-season titles under Stankiewicz.^[8]

Stankiewicz led GCU to its first WAC Tournament Championship in 2021 and first trip to the NCAA tournament.^[9]

Despite entering the 2022 WAC Tournament as the No. 1 seed, Grand Canyon went 2-2 to get eliminated from the tournament. Carried by a strong regular-season campaign and a No. 50 RPI, the Lopes earned their first at-large selection into the NCAA tournament.^[10]

Stankiewicz was announced as USC's head coach on July 3, 2022, ending an 11-year run leading the program.^[11]

A nine-year assistant coach under Stankiewicz, Wallis had departed GCU following the 2022 season to take an assistant coach position on Bill Mosiello's staff at Ohio State.^[12] GCU brought Wallis back to be its head coach, making the official announcement on July 8, 2022.^[13]

Wallis continued GCU's streak of WAC regular-season success by winning championships in 2023 and 2024. GCU did not win the WAC Tournament in either season.

The Lopes advanced to the 2024 NCAA tournament after Tarleton State — ineligible for NCAA postseason as a transitioning school — went on to win the conference tournament.^[14] GCU took advantage of its second life, winning its first D-I NCAA tournament game in program history by defeating Arizona 9-4 on May 31 in front of the largest crowd in Hi Corbett Field history.^[15] The Lopes took it a step further, recovering from a June 1 loss to West Virginia by defeating Dallas Baptist to advance to the regional final.^[16] GCU lost to West Virginia again to end the Lopes' most successful postseason run at the D-I level.^[17]

Grand Canyon's baseball program has a unique conference membership history that includes a brief stint from 1991–1998 where the program was Division I in baseball but the rest of the university's athletic department was Division II.

Grand Canyon's first athletic affiliation came in 1961 as an associate member of the NAIA. They became full members of the NAIA for the 1968 season, opening postseason participation opportunities.^[18]

The school opted to move out of the NAIA and into the NCAA in the late 1980s, primarily due to the cost burden of traveling to postseason competition and increasingly stringent NAIA rules.^[18] Most of the school's athletic programs landed at the NCAA Division II level, however, baseball opted to go Division I as an independent. The baseball program played its first four D-I years as an independent.

In June 1994, GCU accepted a baseball-only invite to the Western Athletic Conference in the form of a year-to-year affiliate membership agreement.^[19] The Lopes began play in the conference in 1995 and spent four seasons in the conference. GCU's membership was not renewed following the 1998 season, and the university decided to reclassify the program to D-II.^[20] Already knowing it would not be a D-I program the following season, the 1998 team won the program's first D-I regular-season conference title by going 16-14 in WAC play to win the North Division.^[21][22]

When the WAC ended its affiliate membership arrangement, GCU opted to move to D-II rather than remaining a D-I team as an independent. The Lopes spent one year transitioning in 1999, officially classified as a D-I program but largely playing D-II schools. GCU officially joined the California Collegiate Athletic Association in 2000.

GCU announced an intent to return to NAIA in May 2003.^[23] This hit a snag in April 2004, after the school's dire financial situation led the institution to turn to a for-profit model. NAIA bylaws did not allow such institutions, and GCU was forced to remain in the NCAA despite already withdrawing from the CCAA.^[24] The program was forced to be a D-II independent while the university searched for financial stability and a conference home.

GCU's athletic department moved to the Pacific West Conference beginning in the 2006-07 academic year, however the conference did not sponsor baseball as an official sport until 2010.^[25][26]

With exploding enrollment and financial stability, GCU announced an all-sport jump to D-I athletics in November 2012.^[27] The baseball team would return to the WAC beginning in the 2014 season.

On May 10, 2024, GCU announced most of its sports would transition to the West Coast Conference in time for the 2026 baseball season.^[28]

Brazell Field at GCU Ballpark is a baseball stadium on the Grand Canyon campus in Phoenix, Arizona that seats 4,000 people. While the field has remained in place since 1962, a new stadium was constructed around the playing surface.^[29] It was opened on February 16, 2018 with a 2–1 loss to TCU.^[30] A record attendance of 5,281 was set on February 16, 2024, an opening day win over Georgetown.^[31]

In a program that has existed since 1953, Grand Canyon has had extreme continuity in its head coaching position. David Brazell founded the program and coached it for its first 28 years. Gil Stafford coached for 20 years including the program's first run at the Division I level. Alumnus and former Major leaguer Dave Stapleton coached the team for 10 years. Andy Stankiewicz took over for the 2012 season and led the program through its first nine seasons back at the Division I level beginning in 2014. His longtime assistant, Gregg Wallis, took over for Stankiewicz in the 2023 season.^[32]

Records taken from the 2020 GCU baseball media guide.^[33]

• Over their 11 discontinuous seasons in the Western Athletic Conference, 18 different Lopes have been named to the all-conference first-team.

Taken from the 2020 GCU baseball media guide.^[33] Updated March 2, 2020.

As of 2023, Grand Canyon has had 106 of its players selected in the MLB draft. Thirty-one of those selections have occurred since 2015 when the program returned to Division I.^[35]

On July 9, 2023, Jacob Wilson became the highest drafted player in program history when he went sixth overall to the Oakland Athletics.^[36]

Taken from the 2024 GCU baseball media guide.^[33] Updated May 22, 2024.

• List of NCAA Division I baseball programs