135 seconds.
 
That was all Tyler Soren needed to regain his composure.
 
"Coach's visit to the mound really helped," said Soren. "It got my focus back. He reminded me that I just needed to throw strikes."
 
The visit came in the bottom of the 9^th inning when Soren was in the midst of slamming the door on 2^nd-seeded California Polytechnic University in a 5-3 opening-round victory for Grand Canyon University Club Baseball at the National Club Baseball Association's Southern Pacific Regional Tournament in San Luis Obispo, California Friday night. The win moved the 3^rd-seeded Lopes (16-11 overall, 12-3 SoPac South) to the semifinal round of the four-team tournament Saturday morning against the University of California-Santa Barbara.
 
The offensive stats alone didn't bring a win for the Lopes, since they only had four hits for the game. The resourceful Lopes, though, used every advantage they were given by the Mustangs – who entered the tournament as the 2nd-ranked team in the current NCBA Division 1 Poll. Jacob Hellman, the Mustangs' earned run average leader (1.06), was sharp on the hill - for a while. Other than a 1^st-inning single to GCU 3^rd baseman Sam Ott, Hellman fanned nine Lopes' hitters in the first four shutout innings. On the other side, Lopes' starter Gordon Wend was equally stingy, allowing a single unearned run through four. In the fifth, the complexion of the game changed. Jonah Zembik led off the Lopes' 5^th inning with a single. Santiago Zuniga followed with a sacrifice bunt hit too hard towards Hellman, who threw out Zembik at 2^nd base, but was never the same pitcher after that, walking the next three in a row before exiting. CPU reliever Brent Isdahl didn't allow a hit the rest of the inning, but a hit batter and Caden Rogers sacrifice fly plated three runs to give GCU a short-lived 3-1 lead. The Mustangs bounced back in the bottom of the frame to touch Wend for two runs on a walk and three singles to tie the game at 3-3.
 
Lopes' Head Coach Rich Warnol then pulled Wend in lieu of Soren – normally the Lopes' closer. In what became his longest stint of his two-year GCU career, Soren shut down the Mustangs over the next three innings, allowing just one runner past 1^st base before the 9^th inning. In the meantime, Warnol picked the right time to insert Arturo Lopez, Junior, as a pinch-hitter in the 7^th after Isdahl faltered with two walks and a hit batter to load the bases with two out. Lopez jumped on a 1-0 pitch for a double to the left-center gap, scoring Koa Manintin and Ott for a 5-3 Lopes' edge.
 
The only question left was whether Soren could reach the end of the game, which was answered during that fateful 9^th-inning pep talk after a walk, wild pitch and passed ball got a Mustangs' runner to 3^rd base to bring the tying run to the plate with one out. Soren rallied back from a 2-0 count to strike out Mick Backowski, then after walking Jacob Hambel, got CPU's best hitter of the night on a called 3^rd strike (Soren's 86^th pitch) to end the game. Soren (4-0) allowed a single hit over four innings of relief to get the win.
 
Needing two more wins to make their first trip to the NCBA D1 World Series since 2019, the Lopes will square off against the Cinderella team of the tournament, 4^th-seeded UCSB (who upset top-seeded University of California Davis, 7-0, in their first-round matchup Friday), in the semifinal round at 10AM Saturday. A win there sends the Lopes to the championship round of the double-elimination tournament Sunday, while a loss would force GCU to an elimination-round game Saturday afternoon.