Stover's Brilliance, Hot Bats Lift Eagles To Another Tourney Win

The Ashland University baseball team got a sterling performance from junior right-hander Josh Stover and the offense collected 20 hits as the Eagles rolled to a 15-1 win over Grand Valley State, 15-1, on Friday (May 21) night in the GLIAC Tournament in Lansing, Mich.
 
The No. 4-seeded Eagles (24-17) are now 2-0 in the tournament and will meet the other undefeated team, top-seeded Davenport, at 10 a.m. on Saturday. The winner will play for the conference title on Sunday while the loser will play at 6 p.m. Saturday against the winner of Wayne State-Grand Valley State.
 
The 15 runs scored by the Eagles are their most in a GLIAC Tournament game since beating Wayne State, 25-14, on May 16, 2008.
 
The Eagles trailed after the first inning on Friday when Ryan Blake-Jones drove in a run on a groundout. Stover gave up two hits in the inning, then a leadoff single in the second before mowing through the GVSU lineup.
 
Stover (5-5) retired the next 10 hitters he faced, the only hitter reaching on him until the eighth inning coming on an error. He pitched around a leadoff walk in the eighth, but was stellar across eight innings. He struck out four and walked two.
 
The offense backed up the performance with five runs in the fifth. Junior Micah Allen provided the go-ahead blow – a two-run single with no outs. Junior Dillan Smith added a two-run triple later in the inning and senior Logan Stoldt had an RBI single to make it 5-1 as the Eagles had six hits in the inning, but left the bases loaded.
 
Ashland broke it open with eight runs on eight hits in the seventh inning. Junior Austin Eifrid and senior Garett Robberts had two hits each in the frame. Ashland had five straight two-out RBI hits in the inning.
 
Eight players had multiple hits in the game, led by three each from Eifrid, Robberts, Stoldt and junior Tim Zeller. Smith finished with three RBI and Robberts and Allen each walked twice.
 
Right-hander Josh Meyer came on and struck out the side in the ninth to finish the brilliant pitching performance.
 
Grand Valley State will now play Wayne State in an elimination game at 2 p.m. Saturday.