Saturday/Sunday vs. Wisconsin-Parkside:
Game Notes l
Live Stats
WESTFIELD, Ind.— The Grand Valley State baseball team faces a quick turnaround from the annual Florida trip with a weekend series in Westfield, Indiana this weekend against Wisconsin-Parkside (5-5). GVSU is 9-5 overall after a 5-5 record in Orlando, a trip that saw the team return to Allendale early Tuesday morning.
The Lakers will face the Rangers in a single nine inning game on Saturday at noon, before playing a doubleheader on Sunday, both seven inning contests. All three contests will be played at Grand Park in Westfield, Indiana, the site of last season's Midwest Region Crossover event in which GVSU participated.
After starting the season 4-0 and scoring 31 runs in their first four games, the Lakers split their first four games of the RussMatt Invitational with a walk-off win, a lopsided victory and two defeats, both by seven or more runs. A 15-3 rout of Notre Dame College saw several Lakers reach noteworthy offensive marks, but from that point the Laker offense struggled to plate runs in their final five games, scoring just sixteen runs in the stretch.
Heading into the weekend matchups with the Rangers, the Lakers are currently batting .301 as a team and averaging 9.5 hits a game. Junior catcher/designated hitter
Brody Andrews leads the team with a .444 average, thanks in large part to the Florida games, where he batted .419 and compiled 13 hits (six for extra bases) with three home runs and drove in seven runs. Infielder
Austin LaDoux also had a strong spring trip, batting .423 with 11 hits in 16 at-bats and driving in four runs. In all, six Lakers are batting over .300 on the young season.
On the mound, the Lakers have a solid, if unspectacular 4.77 team earned-run-average, but have gotten solid contributions from the starting pitching staff.
Mitch Ashcraft (2.77 ERA),
Tate Brawley (1.23),
Sawyer Chambers (1.23) and
Noah Lamboley (3.12) all turned in quality starts in Orlando, while
Jake Mason leads the team in strikeouts (14 K's in 10.2 innings) and
Ryan Arnold has fanned eight in 11 innings. Closer
Matt Williams is 4-5 in save situations this season, and has fanned eight batters in 4.2 innings.
The Rangers are led by designated hitter Kyohei Makita, who is batting .395 with 15 hits (3 HR's) and eight runs driven in. Max Widmar (.394 average, 12 RBI's) and Jake Kolasinski (.364 average, 10 RBI) are Parkside's top RBI men, as the Rangers average 6.3 runs a game while batting .307. After taking three of four games from Truman State to open March, the Rangers dropped both games of a doubleheader against Marysville to bring their record to 5-5 on the season.
In their first 10 games of the season, Wisconsin-Parkside has struggled on the mound, surrendering double digits runs in four games and allowing an average of seven runs per contest. As a team, the Rangers have an ERA of 7.16, and have issued 43 walks while striking out 58 opposing batters. Only one Ranger pitcher has an ERA of less than 4.00, with each starting pitcher being above the mark.
