Grand Rapids, Mich. – Saginaw Valley State University baseball had an interesting 36 hours between Saturday and Sunday. With the rain and snow coming through the Great Lakes Bay Region, the team worked hard to clear and prepare their home field for a Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (GLIAC) double header on Sunday against Grand Valley State University. Three hours before the first pitch, the field was not in playable condition and the games were moved to Cornerstone University in Grand Rapids.
SVSU (10-11, 2-2) were still the home team, but the location advantage shifted to GVSU (13-4, 2-0) who won both games 3-2 and 10-1.
The Lakers got on the board in the first inning of game one as they led off the inning with a double and drove the run in with a sacrifice fly. Cardinal starter Steven Hecht (L, 0-2) settled in and threw three scoreless innings afterwards until Grand Valley added two in the fifth. With two outs, back-to-back singles came around to score on a 2 RBI triple making it 3-0.
Chase Gruno relieved Hecht, pitching two scoreless innings. Gruno struck out four allowing one hit and one walk which helped SVSU battle back some in the late stages of the game.
Cardinal bats were finding green as they out hit the Lakers 7-6, but the runs didn't come. In the bottom of the seventh, Austin Schweiger had the biggest hit of the day for SVSU with a two-run home run scoring Martin Money who singled to start the inning. Down just one run, the next two batters got out to finish the seven-inning game.
Laker starter Nick Rutkowski (W, 4-1) pitched all seven-innings allowing two runs on seven hits and struck out three.
Game two started even quicker for Grand Valley. Three runs in the first on two hits and three walks gave them the early 3-0 lead. SVSU tallied one in the bottom half when Jaccar Watkins tripled, his third of the season, and then scored on a RBI sacrifice fly by Colin Cornwell, his team leading 19th of the year.
SVSU starter Ryan Adams (L, 0-2) got struck with three more runs in the third pushing the Lakers lead to 6-1. Nick Bastian took over and pitched four shut out innings with five strikeouts and one hit against. Nolan Knauf worked two innings in relief as he struck out three and had one run against on one hit and a walk. Drew Cooper pitched the ninth and got some unlucky hits against. An error in the inning made two of the three runs against Cooper unearned as Grand Valley pushed the lead to 10-1.
Colby Phipps (W, 4-0) got the start for GVSU and allowed the lone run in his six innings of work. Three bullpen arms all pitched a scoreless inning for the Lakers to close the final third of the game.
Between the snow Saturday, the last-minute game location change, and the rain throughout the games Sunday, it became one of those "remember when?" days for the Cardinals.
UP NEXT
SVSU heads to Wayne State University (16-3, 4-0) Tuesday for a single game. The first pitch is scheduled for 3:00 p.m.
