By: Ryan Thompson, Assistant AD for Communications
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – The Davenport baseball team accomplished one of their season goals on Friday, May 2, by winning the outright Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference regular season championship with a 7-2 win at Roosevelt. It was the third league championship in the last five years and puts the Panthers in a position to pull off the double by winning the GLIAC Tournament this week. DU also was able to win both the regular season and tournament titles during the 2021 and 2022 seasons. Davenport was able to win three of four games at Roosevelt and finished with a 21-3 league record. It was the best win percentage in a season since GVSU went 34-1 during the 2011 campaign. Davenport is now 37-13 overall and has their best win percentage in a season since joining the NCAA Division II ranks in 2018. DU was selected as the top team in the Midwest Region by the NCAA for the second week in a row and will look to potentially host one of the NCAA Midwest Regionals with a strong showing at the GLIAC Tournament. The Panthers are currently No. 12 in the ABCA poll, No. 15 in the D2Baseball.com poll, and No. 16 in the NCBWA poll.
INSIDE THE NUMBERS
Davenport cruised to wins in the first two games of the Roosevelt series, but the last two games proved to be quite a challenge. DU won 7-2 on Friday and then took game one 8-3 on Saturday. The Lakers handed DU just their third conference loss of the season with a come-from-behind 5-3 win in game two on Saturday. The final game of the series was a 5-4 win by Davenport to wrap up the regular season. DU batted .319 in the series, while the Lakers hit .241. The Panthers were able to distance themselves in extra-base hits with an edge of 15-6. DU collected 11 doubles, three triples, and one home run in the four games.
Michael Tchavdarov had the homer and led the team with a .412 batting average (7-17). He scored five runs and drove in three runs with two stolen bases and just one strikeout.
Xander Reisbig returned after missing the Wayne State series and hit .400 going 6-for-15 at the dish. He had hit safely in his first 18 GLIAC games this season before going 0-for-3 in the regular season finale on Sunday. The team had a 3.82 ERA in 33 innings of work.
Zach Hopman got his first start of the season on Friday and picked up the win going 6.2 innings. He allowed just one run on three hits with three walks and one strikeout.
Adam Berghorst got the win in game one on Saturday. He improved to 5-0 in league play on the mound by going all seven innings with no walks and four strikeouts.
Reisbig led the team in batting average against teams that qualified for the GLIAC Tournament. He hit .466 in his 15 games with 27 hits in 58 at-bats.
Cody Hultink hit .379 in 19 games with 18 runs scored, three doubles, and 10 RBI.
Justin Johnson drove in 20 runs and hit .352 with seven doubles, one triple, and four home runs. Davenport excelled on the base paths in the 20 games against GLIAC Tournament opponents. They had 37 steals compared to just 17 for the opposition. Davenport sported a 3.69 ERA in these games compared to 7.71 for the opposition.
SERIES HISTORY
Davenport had not played Roosevelt until last weekend and now are 3-1 in the series. The teams will play again on Thursday, May 8 in the opening game of the tournament. Davenport is the one-seed and Roosevelt is the sixth-seed making the tournament in their first year in the conference. The Panthers have a record of 17-9 in the GLIAC Tournament.
SINGLE SEASON RECORD BOOK (TOP 10)
LIVE COVERAGE
Thursday, May 8 - 3:00 PM - Roosevelt - Lansing, MI (Jackson Field home of the Lansing Lugnuts) -
Live Video (FloCollege) -
Live Stats
Tournament Website
