Illinois Valley baseball fans don’t have to wait until the end of May for college players to return to Schweickert Stadium in Peru, home to the Prospect League champion Illinois Valley Pistol Shrimp.
The Grand Valley State University and Upper Iowa University baseball teams will play a three-game series at Schweickert Stadium on Thursday and Friday.
Former St. Bede standout Jarret Olson, the pitching coach at GVSU, played an integral role in the series being played in Peru.
Last summer, the Grand Valley coaching staff was figuring out the Lakers’ schedule and looking to fill their Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference bye May 1-2.
After making some calls, they found out Upper Iowa, a member of the Great Lakes Valley Conference, also had an open weekend.
“They’re nine hours away, so we’re not going to want to go to them, and they’re not going to come here,” Olson said. “So we were trying to figure out a neutral site that we could go to that would be easier on both of us. I was like, ‘I think my hometown is right in the middle.’
“We looked it up, and it’s 3 hours, 45 minutes for us and 3 hours, 44 minutes for them. I reached out to Nick (Harsted), the coach at IVCC, about Veterans, and he put me in contact with (Peru director of parks, recreation and special events) Adam Thorson, and the ball kind of rolled from there.”
The Lakers and Peacocks will play the series opener at 7 p.m. Thursday and a doubleheader Friday with games at 2 p.m. and 4:30 p.m.
“I don’t think I ever played on that field, but it’s definitely a full-circle moment for me having grown up there, played there and now coming back as a coach,” Olson said. “It’s definitely cool for me. Both programs have Illinois Valley ties. Brett Fanning from Hall and Cody Booker from L-P played at Upper Iowa. My sister (Katie) played volleyball at GVSU, and Noah Lamboli from L-P played baseball at GVSU, and now I coach there.”
Grand Valley has been among the top teams in NCAA Division II this spring.
The Lakers are 35-10 overall and 18-6 in conference. GVSU is ranked No. 1in the Midwest Region and No. 8 in the nation in the latest National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association poll.
“We’re definitely putting together a solid year in Year 2 (with the coaching staff),” Olson said. “We’re building off that success from Year 1. We obviously want to win the GLIAC Tournament, but something we’ve put an emphasis on now is every game matters, because we want to host a regional. We want to sleep in our own beds toward the end of the season. So that’s definitely a big thing.
“In postseason baseball, anything can happen. We just want to keep the ball rolling as long as we can.”
Upper Iowa is 21-25 overall and 15-17 in conference.
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