PHOENIX -- Sacramento State mounted a late comeback in the seventh, but fell short in a 4-2 loss at Grand Canyon on Friday evening at GCU Softball Stadium.

The Hornets were playing their second game of the three-day GCU Invite, and are now 1-1 at the tournament. That includes a 9-1 mercy-rule victory over South Dakota earlier this afternoon. Sacramento State has three games remaining at the event, including two tomorrow and one on Sunday.

Grand Canyon, which is the second highest team receiving votes in both the ESPN.com and NFCA top 25 polls, improved to 7-0. The Hornets dropped to 5-2.

The Lopes scored a pair of runs in the third, and one each in the fourth and fifth innings to take a 4-0 lead. Of Grand Canyon's nine hits, five were fortuitous bloop hits that fell in between the Hornet infield and outfield. Alexa Ortiz was the unlucky Hornet pitcher, as Grand Canyon, despite plenty of weak contact, tallied four runs and eight hits against the right-hander.

Ortiz (2-1) had a streak of 17 straight scoreless innings until the Lopes pushed across a pair of runs (on two bloop doubles) in the third. 

The Hornets had seven hits, but left nine runners on base. Sacramento State did not score until the seventh inning when Katie Marsh's two-out, two-run triple drove home Madi Mendoza and Saskia Raab. 

Mendoza was the lone Hornet to finish with multiple hits as she was 2-for-3 with a run scored. The Hornets' top four hitters in the lineup combined to go 5-for-13 with two runs and two RBIs, but the bottom five hitters were 2-for-15 with no runs and no RBIs. 

Other Hornets to accumulate hits were Lafulafu Malepeai, Raab, Marsh, Madison Evers-Lyles and Ava Medellin. The hit for Medellin, a true freshman, was the first of her collegiate career.

Sacramento State won't have too much time to rest as the Hornets play a pair of games tomorrow morning. The Hornets will play South Dakota at 8 a.m. PT, followed by a matchup with Harvard at 10:30 a.m. PT. Harvard will be playing its season opener.