ALLENDALE, Mich. — For the first time since 2016, Grand Valley baseball will be playing post season baseball. The Lakers won the GLIAC tournament title in a 5-3 win over Saginaw Valley to earn the automatic bid for the NCAA tournament.
GVSU has won 8 consecutive games, including their first GLIAC tournament since 2016. They've made 18 NCAA tournaments all-time, including 6 world series appearances.
Byron Center native Ryan Dykstra is hitting .397 in the last 15 games, .324 on the year with 66 hits and a team-high 59 RBI, which is fifth on the single-season list for RBI. He transferred to GV from Oakland University and is thrilled to be on this team.
"It didn't take long to get to know the guys and know that we have something special with Coach Keur's vision on what he wanted this program to be. Everyone was kinda on board and we all bought in. I thought we had something special earlier in the fall and just to see it turn into what we wanted this spring has been great," said Dykstra.
Senior and Jenison alum, Kyle Nott, is hitting a team-best .335 with 56 hits, 43 runs scored and 29 RBI. He also had racked up14 stolen bases, hit for the cycle earlier this season, first time that has been accomplished in 35 years. Nott is just the second player in GVSU history to reach 210 hits, 165 runs scored, 100 RBI and 50 stolen bases. He says that they struggled to be consistent earlier in the season but are hitting their stride at the perfect time.
"We definitely had some struggles earlier in the season. We had trouble trying to find that consistency. But there's a lot of fight in this team, a lot of grit to keep trusting the process. Going to practice every day, we're looking forward to more opportunities and eventually getting that down was a good feeling," said Nott.
The Lakers will play Maryville at the UIndy regional with game one set for Thursday, May 16th at 2pm.
