INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. – The William Jewell baseball team has secured a berth in the Great Lakes Valley Conference Tournament, as announced by the league on Sunday evening. This will be the first appearance in the postseason for the Cardinals since 2017.
This spring, Jewell went 30-19 in the regular season and 15-13 in the GLVC Green Division, finishing with a 19-2 win over Drury University in the regular season finale. Jewell will be the No. 4 seed in the Green Division, winning the tiebreaker over McKendree University. The Cards and Bearcats split their four-game series last weekend forcing the tiebreaker to be decided by the head-to-head record of the remaining divisional institutions in order of finish. With both teams going 1-3 against Green Division Champion Drury, it then fell to the Maryville series where the Cardinals went 2-2 on April 22-23 while McKendree went 1-3 against the Saints.
The Cardinal offense has been exceptional all spring, hitting .338 as a team with five players hitting better than .360. Five players have already vaulted into the top-10 in the NCAA era in single season hits while scattering various other new additions across the single season and career records.
Cameron Fliege leads the team with a .404 average, 18 doubles and 63 RBI, which set the NCAA era single season mark.
Alex Epp boasts a .399 average with 75 hits and nine home runs while
Jake Wilcox leads the way with 76 hits and 30 stolen bases.
Anthony Hansen has broken numerous career records this spring and is currently hitting .365 with a team high 16 home runs.
Like their hitters, the Jewell pitchers have also been a part of some record-breaking performances this season.
Reed Pegram is the NCAA era leader with 65 career appearances while
Jake MacDonald and
Jackson Bodinson each set the program record for single game strikeouts with 12. Overall, the staff comes into the tournament with a 6.61 ERA with 294 strikeouts and a .310 opponent average.
Jake Sawyer owns a 4.32 ERA followed by MacDonald at 4.61. Bodinson and MacDonald have combined for nine complete games as the Cardinals lead the GLVC and rank in the top-10 in Division with 13 total.
Jewell will take on the top seed out of the Blue Division, Illinois Springfield. The Stars are riding high this spring, going 39-8 and 19-5 in the league after winning 21 of their final 23. In the NCAA era, the Cardinals are 4-13-1 against UIS with their last win coming in a 12-11 decision on April 7, 2019. The lone tie in Jewell head coach
Mike Stockton's career of more than 1,000 games at the helm, came in a 2-2 contest in March 2019 in a game that ended due to darkness. The Cardinals and Stars open the double elimination GLVC Tournament on Thursday at 4 p.m. at the Lou Brock Sports Complex in St. Charles, Missouri on the campus of Lindenwood University.
Tickets for the 42nd annual Conference Tournament are $12 for adults and $5 for youth (6-17) and students (with ID), while kids 5-and-under are free. Tickets must be purchased online in advance at
GLVCsports.com/tickets. No cash will be accepted on site.
Each GLVC Championship Tournament contest will be streamed live on the GLVC Sports Network (GLVCSN). Coverage can be seen by logging on to the GLVCSN's official homepage,
GLVCSN.com, or on the GLVCSN iOS/Android mobile apps, as well as on the Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV and Android TV OTT platforms. Live stats and results can be found on the official Championship page at
GLVCsports.com/2022baseball. Updates will also be included on the GLVC's official Twitter accounts (@GLVCsports and @GLVCSN) with the hashtags #GLVCbase and #GLVCchamps.
