LANSING, Mich. – The Grand Valley State baseball team held on to defeat Ashland, 5-4, on Saturday night to advance to the GLIAC Tournament finals. The Eagles had the tying run on second base with two outs in the ninth inning before Ben Thomas got a three-pitch strikeout to earn the save and secure the win for the Lakers. GVSU will play Davenport tomorrow at 11:00 AM in the GLIAC Tournament finals. The Panthers only need to win one game, while the Lakers will need to win a pair of games tomorrow to be crowned the champions and earn the automatic bid to the Midwest Regional.  
 
Austin Brown turned in a terrific outing, tossing 7 1/3 innings, five hits, one earned, and four strikeouts to earn the win, while Thomas entered in the ninth inning with the tying run on second and kept the Eagles off the board.
 
The Lakers held a 4-0 lead through seven innings play, scoring on a pair of Kyle Nott run-scoring singles and a Jake Rydquist RBI single up the middle. Ashland would battle back in the top of the eighth inning, sending nine men to the plate, but only scoring two runs. GVSU added an insurance run in the bottom of the eighth on a safety squeeze by Rydquist to score Nott.
 
The Eagles made things interesting in the ninth inning as the first three batters reached base including a two-run double to cut the Laker lead to 5-4. Thomas then entered the game and recorded a strikeout, a line out, and then a strikeout looking to earn the save and advance the Lakers to the GLIAC Tournament Championship.

Nott led the Lakers with two hits, three RBI, and two runs scored, while Christian Faust and Cade Stanton also recorded multi hit games.