Allendale, Mich. – The final weekend of the regular season started with a bang for Saginaw Valley State University baseball as they took game one of four against Grand Valley State University 8-3. The win leapfrogged Saginaw Valley (25-21, 15-12) over Grand Valley (27-17, 14-13) into third place in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (GLIAC) standings and the Cardinals improve to 12-1 on Fridays in the 2023 campaign.
A big day at the plate for Saginaw Valley who racked up 11 hits with eight of the nine batter reaching base with seven of them getting hits. Jaccar Watkins, Colin Cornwell, Reed Raymond, and Brandon Scheurer all had multi-hit games.
Facing Grand Valley's starter Nick Rutkowski (L, 8-2), SVSU got on the board first taking advantage of some walks in the first inning. Tucker Roe walked, Watkins doubled, and then Martin Money walked to load the bases before Reed Raymond worked an RBI walk to make it 1-0.
Cardinal starter Tyler McLaren (W, 8-1) got into trouble in the first as well allowing a single, a double, and a wild pitch to score a run, but kept the Lakers from taking the lead. McLaren would throw six scoreless frames following as he went eight innings of work with three runs against on five hits and five strikeouts.
SVSU took the lead again in the third and never looked back. Watkins walked and stole a base before Cornwell reached on an error. Austin Schweiger singled to left to score Watkins and give the Cardinals a 2-1 lead. Watkins would add more in the fourth when Scheurer singled to lead off and after the next two batters got out, Watkins smashed a ball to right field for a two-run home run, his second long ball of the season.
The 4-1 lead stuck until the eighth. A walk and an error to start put Scheurer and Connor McClennen in scoring position with no outs. Roe pulled a ball down the left field line and singled home both to break the game open. Two batters later Cornwell doubled to score Roe and make it 7-1.
The insurance runs came up big after Grand Valley hit a two-run home run of their own in the eighth to cut the lead to four. SVSU put up one more in the ninth as McClennen battled through a long at-bat to fly a ball to the outfield and score Raymond on the sacrifice fly. Nolan Knauf took over in the ninth for McLaren and pitched a clean inning striking out one of the three batters he faced to finish the game.
The six strikeouts for Cardinal pitching brings the staff to 377 on the year, just two shy of the team record in a season of 379 set by the 2022 pitching staff.
UP NEXT
A GLIAC doubleheader between the Cardinals and Lakers starts with a first pitch at 1:00 p.m. on Saturday. Three games remain between these two teams to finish the regular season and will be big in deciding the seeding for the GLIAC tournament that follows next week.
