Live Stats (Game 1) |
Live Stats (Game 2) |
Game Notes
ALLENDALE, Mich.—The Grand Valley State baseball team, winners of six of their last eight games, will begin a slate of games away from Allendale on Wednesday, when they travel to Northwood University for the second doubleheader between the two teams. The matchup comes exactly one week after the Lakers defeated the Timberwolves in the first doubleheader, held last Wednesday in Allendale. In those games, the Lakers shutout Northwood in the first game, 3-0, and won a high scoring nightcap by a 9-7 score.
Live Stats for the game can be found in the link above, as well as game notes for the matchup.
GVSU is 19-11-1 on the season, coming off a series win versus Walsh over the weekend, as they took three of the four games from the Cavaliers. Sunday's doubleheader involved a 7-3 Laker win in the first game and a narrow 4-3 comeback win the in second game.
Senior DH/OF
Jason Ribecky swung the big bat for the Lakers in the four game series with Walsh, totaling six hits, including two home runs in driving in a team high 10 RBI. After the offensive outburst, Ribecky now leads the Lakers in runs batted in (24) and slugging percentage (.589), and is second on the team in hits (32) and runs scored (21).
Also seeing the ball well for GVSU was OF
Seth Johnson, who hit .636 over the weekend with seven hits (four doubles) in eleven at bats and driving in three runs. The beneficiary of Johnson and Ribecky's hitting was center fielder
Alex Young, who scored nine runs against Walsh after posting seven hits in thirteen at-bats.
On the other side of the ball, the Laker's pitching held the Walsh offense to 18 runs in the four games, allowing just one home run to a team that came into the weekend with 28 round-trippers on the season.
Northwood comes into the midweek doubleheader having split a four game series with Ohio Dominican, who had previously been winless in conference play. The Timberwolves are batting .282 on the season as a team, whereas the Lakers are fifth in the conference with a .308 team average. Northwood's leading hitter, Cody Kuzniczci, is batting well above his team's average, at .331, and has 41 hits on the season to go along with 23 runs driven in, the second highest mark on the team. Infielder Daniel Pulver is another capable batter for the Timberwolves, as he leads the team in RBI with 27, is third in hits (35) and had seven doubles and four triples on the season.
In the pitching categories, the two teams are very similar across the board, without much difference in pitching numbers. In last week's doubleheader, however, senior pitcher
Zach Anderson got the best of the Timberwolves, as he hurled a gem of an outing, a one hit complete game (7 inn.) shutout in a 3-0 victory. He needed just 86 pitched to strike out eight batters, allowing just one hit and one walk to pick up his third win of the season.
With 16 games remaining on the regular season schedule, the Lakers have a slim one game lead over Hillsdale College for the top spot in the GLIAC North Division, with the Northwood doubleheader and pair of road doubleheaders at Findlay this weekend in the immediate future. If the Lakers can win the two games against the Timberwolves on Wednesday, it will give the team it's third four game series win of the season, as well as giving the team two more divisional games to create a cushion in the North Division Standings.
First pitch for Wednesday is set for a 2:00 p.m start at Gerace Baseball Stadium in Midland, Michigan, with the second game following about a half hour after the finish of the first game.
