Grand Canyon Softball Claims 2026 Mountain West Regular-Season Crown
· Yahoo Sports
The Grand Canyon Lopes defeated the CSU Rams 10-5 on Thursday night for their 46th win of the season. A few minutes afterwards, the UNLV Rebels completed an upset victory over the Nevada Wolf Pack, locking up the regular-season Mountain West title for the Lopes in their inagural season in the conference. This title is also the first MW title for any Lope team, a huge milestone for an athletics program quickly on the rise.
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Entering 2026, GCU softball was riding high, riding the wave under Head Coach Shanon Hays with four consecutive seasons of 39 or more wins, four consecutive NCAA Tournament berths, and a pattern for laying waste to whatever poor souls happened to stand in their way. With their move to the Mountain West Conference prior to the 2026 season, many expected the Lopes to have a bit of a tougher time with the hightened level of competition found in their new conference, with contenders like Nevada, San Diego State and Fresno State looking to knock them off their perch. Needless to say, that did not happen.
GCU got off to a remarkable 30-0 start this season, serving as the last undefeated team in the country, and only losing that undefeated status due to questionable officiating in a game against the then-21st ranked Oklahoma State Cowgirls. Since then, the Lopes had been backsliding, going 13-6 over their next 19 games, including losing a crucial series at home to the second-place Wolf Pack, along with getting run-ruled by an imploding San Diego State. Thankfully for the Lopes, they have taken care of business far better than the mercurial Pack, whose six other atrocious conference losses have put them too far back for that tiebreaker to come into play.
The Lopes rank near the top of the conference in every single statistic of any significance, dominating with a combination of consistent hitting and a pitching staff that gives nothing up for free. The Lopes have far and away the best team ERA (2.17), and the most strikeouts (311) in the conference, as well as the best walk rate in the country (5.4%). The Lopes rank second in the conference in batting average (.320), being tied with the Wolf Pack for the conference lead in OPS (.975). This is a scary team that will be an even tougher out in the tournament than they may already seem.
The Lopes still have two more games to pad their resume further, but regardless of scenario, GCU will enter the Mountain West Tournament as the #1 seed. The Lopes will play either the #4 or #5 seed in the first round of the double-elimination portion of the tournament on Thursday, May 7th, in Reno, Nevada. Their opponent will either be Colorado State, Fresno State, or New Mexico.