Weekend full of wins.
The Grand Canyon University Men's Bowling Varsity team claimed a 2nd-place finish at the Sin City Open over the weekend and a 1st-place finish at the Rebel Classic two days later. Not to be forgotten, the Lopes' JV2 squad completed a program first and swept their division across all three days of competition.
Sin City Open
The varsity Lopes got off to a slow start in the beginning stages of the Sin City Open (which consisted of four team games), sitting in third place after day one behind Arizona State University and the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. On the second day they flipped a switch, outpacing the rest of the field by 211 pins across 10 Baker games, but ultimately their mission of making up their 260-pin deficit to ASU fell short and they claimed second place.
It was a much different story for the JV2 Lopes, who led the pack in both the team game and Baker game sections of the tournament and finished in first place with 5705 total pins. GCU's Paul O'Kain led the way for JV2 while Wesley Cunningham paced the JV1 squad en route to a second-place team finish.
Gallery: (2-6-2026) Bowling at Sin City Open/Rebel Classic
Rebel Classic
The Varsity Lopes kept the momentum they created at the end of the Sin City Open going into the Rebel Classic, storming out to an early 105-pin lead across five team games. The following 12 Baker games were just as dominant for GCU as they widened that margin to 283 pins and earned the first-place finish. In the ensuing bracket play GCU's varsity team was beat in the final match by cross-town rival ASU.
GCU varsity's Jovan Mercado and David Wisely both earned spots on the All-Tournament Team thanks to their 1109 and 1114 total pinfall contributions, finishing in 4th and 3rd individually, respectively.
"It was nice to see the guys take the momentum and good bowling that they got to at the end of Sin City and bring it on Sunday," said GCU Head Coach Ben Canfield.
The JV2 squad, this time led by Karsten Poyser's 192.2 game average, continued their dominance in the JV division, once again edging out the GCU JV1 team (who was paced by freshman Noah Barranco's 192.8 game average) by 202 pins. The JV2 Lopes then backed up their qualifying bowling with a first-place finish in bracket play.
Now the Lopes will prepare for the Hoosier Classic on February 15 in Indianapolis, IN, where the varsity team hopes to improve upon their 24th-place finish from last season.
