Hunter Katschke homered twice, while Ryan Martinez fired seven-plus innings of six-hit baseball, as Utah Tech clinched its first WAC series win of the season with a 9-1 triumph over Grand Canyon on Saturday afternoon at Bruce Hurst Field.

With the victory, the Trailblazers improved to 17-21 overall, 3-9 in WAC play, and also snapped GCU's streak of 21-consecutive WAC road series victories. The last time GCU (23-16/10-5 WAC) lost a conference road series came at the end of the 2019 season.
 
Martinez (W, 2-1) breezed through his first six innings of work, during which he limited the Lopes to only two total hits and saw only one base runner reach third base. That instance came in the third inning after a one-out error extended the frame, though the junior righthander worked out of the jam to keep GCU off the scoreboard.
 
Meanwhile the Trailblazer offense would give Martinez all the runs he would need in the fourth and fifth innings, combining for six runs over those two stanzas to bolt out to a commanding 6-0 lead.
 
Utah Tech got on the scoreboard in the home fourth thanks to a two-out Aaron Perez single that chased home Ryan Kroepel, who reached on a one-out hustle double.
 
The Blazers broke the game open in the fifth, sending 10 batters to the plate as part of a five-run, six-hit rally.
 
Utah Tech rapped out four-straight, one-out hits, including a Kyle McDaniel opposite field bloop single to score Ty Johnsen, who singled to start the rally.
 
Ethan Royal followed with a perfectly executed safety squeeze bunt down the first base line to drive in another run ahead of Kroepel, who singled in McDaniel to make it a 4-0 game. 

Katschke then capped the rally with his team-leading seventh home run of the season to give his side comfortable six-run cushion.
 
GCU managed to spoil Martinez's possible shutout bid with two outs in the seventh when Michael Diaz tripled off the center field wall to drive in the Lopes' lone run of the game.
 
However the Trailblazers got that run back and more after the stretch when Katschke connected for his second long ball of the day, a towering two-run blast over the batter's eye in straight-away center field. Petey Soto Jr. followed that up one inning later with his third homer of the year, a one-out solo shot down the left field line in the home eighth.
 
Martinez began the eighth and retired the first batter he faced, but consecutive GCU singles spelled the end of his afternoon. Tyler Ray came on and worked around a two-out walk to end that inning, and Dakoda West tossed a spotless ninth to close out the series win.
 
Eight of the nine Trailblazers in the starting line-up recorded at least one hit as Utah Tech outhit GCU 13-6. Kroepel legged out two doubles as part of a 3-for-4 effort with three runs scored, while Perez and Soto Jr. each collected two hits apiece.
 
Katschke's two-homer day was his second multi-homer game in his near two seasons in a Trailblazer uniform. The senior DH clubbed three home runs and had five RBI in a home win last season vs. Utah (W, 11-8; 5/7/24). 

Katschke's team-leading eighth homer in the Blazer seventh, which was his 21^st-career long ball overall, also vaulted him into solo sixth place on Utah Tech's career home run list. 
 
In addition, McDaniel tied a program NCAA Division I-era record by reaching base safely in his 24^th-consecutive game with his fifth inning run-scoring single. McDaniel tied former Blazer All-American catcher Kaden Hollow, who reached base safely in 24-straight games during the 2022 season. 
 
Martinez struck out three and surrendered just the one run and six hits over 7.1 innings, his longest outing of the season, to earn his second win of the season.  
        
Utah Tech returns to action next weekend with its second trip to Texas in the last three weeks for a three-game WAC road series at Tarleton State.