Baseball Earns Outright GLIAC Championship With 8-6 Win At Saginaw Valley

OVERVIEW – SAGINAW VALLEY

SCORE: Northwood Timberwolves 8, Saginaw Valley State Cardinals 6

RECORDS: Northwood 34-14, 21-7 GLIAC / Saginaw Valley 20-28, 5-22 GLIAC

LOCATION: SV Baseball Complex – University Center, Mich.

RECAP: Northwood earned the outright GLIAC Championship and the No. 1 seed in the upcoming conference tournament with a 8-6 win over Saginaw Valley to conclude the regular season Sunday (May 6).

GAME HIGHLIGHTS

• After two days of windy, warm conditions the first two days led to big run totals, the temperature dropped and the windy shifted, making conditions much different on the final day of the series
• Northwood got on the board in the first inning on an RBI single by David Vinsky to give the Timberwolves a 1-0 lead.
• The score remained that way until the sixth, when the Timberwolves took advantage of SVSU mistakes. NU made it 2-0 on a wild pitch that scored Colin McClelland.
• Nick Palmer then scored on an error, which was followed by Kyle Ziegler scoring on a wild pitch to make the score 4-0.
• NU then made it 5-0 when Ryan McClelland came home on a passed ball to finish off a four-run sixth inning that featured no hits and zero RBIs.
• Northwood expanded their lead to six in the top of the seven inning on a run-scoring double by Keaton Sackett that scored Javier Martinez, making the lead 6-0.
• The Timberwolves added to their advantage in the eighth inning, thanks to an RBI single by Vinsky and an RBI groundout by Martinez that gave Northwood a 8-0 lead.
• The Cardinals got on the board in the eighth inning, taking advantage of a pair of errors by Northwood to plate four unearned runs to send the game to the ninth with NU leading 8-4.
• SVSU kept fighting in the ninth inning, pushing across a pair of runs and eventually getting the tying run to the plate before NU closed out the win.

GAME STATS

• Runs/Hits/Errors – Northwood: 8/6/2, Saginaw Valley: 6/10/3
• Runners Left on Base – Northwood: 10, Saginaw Valley: 6
• Winning Pitcher –  Max Bain (5-0): 6 IP, 4 H, 0 R, BB, 5 K
• Losing Pitcher – Brandon Wise (3-4): 5 2/3 IP, 3 H, 5 R (4 ER), 6 BB, 8 K

TOP NU PERFORMERS

• Vinsky: 3-5, 2 RBI
• R. McClelland: 1-3, 3 R
• Ziegler: 2 BB, 2 R

NORTHWOOD NOTES

• Northwood's 34 overall wins and 21 GLIAC wins are both the second most in school history, ranking behind only last year's totals of 46 and 26, respectively.
• Since joining the starting rotation in the Grand Valley State series, Max Bain has made three starts. He has gone 2-0 with a 1.89 ERA in 19 innings of work, striking out 16 while walking four.
• Even with SVSU plating the final six runs of the series, Northwood ended up out-scoring the Cardinals 64-12 over the span of the four-games contested this weekend.

UP NEXT

• Northwood will be the No. 1 seed in the upcoming GLIAC Tournament, which will take place at the Detroit Police Athletic League (PAL) Corner Ballpark – the old location of Tiger Stadium. NU will take on sixth-seeded Tiffin Thursday morning (May 10) at 10:30 a.m.