Spencer Nelson enjoyed a comeback baseball season for NCAA Division II Grand Valley State University (Allendale, Mich.) in 2022. After missing the 2021 campaign while recovering from surgery for a torn left hip labrum, South Bend, Ind., native Nelson started in all 50 of GVSU’s games and .325 (67-of-206) with eight home runs, six triples, 17 doubles, 35 runs batted in and 49 runs scored. The righty-swinging lead-off hitter posted a .969 OPS (.386 on-base percentage plus .583 slugging average) and was named to the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association Midwest all-region second team and all-Great Lakes Interscholastic Athletic Conference second team. He enjoyed four-hit games against Wayne State and Davenport and produced 20 multi-hit contests. A center fielder, Nelson also collected an ABCA/Rawlings Gold Glove Award while completing a bachelors degree in Information Systems. “I’m a student first and an athlete second,” says Nelson. “School and athletics is sometimes hard to balance out.” He was on a Pre-Med track while also playing baseball then made a switch. “I knew I wasn’t going to get much sleep on Sundays with a lot of stress and sacrifices,” says Nelson. “I decided to devote myself to developing myself as a player and a teammate. “I love baseball and I was not not ready to give it up.” Nelson, 23, plans to pursue a masters in Computer Science while playing for the GVSU Lakers in the spring of 2023. His role in 2022 was often as center fielder and lead-off hitter. “You’re in-charge out there (in center field),” says Nelson. “You can roam wherever you want. It’s a fun little area to hang out.” Playing the outfield, communication becomes key when tracking the ball and making relay throws. “Everybody in the outfield should be aggressive to catch it,” says Nelson. “This year I had a lot of trust in my guys as I tend to do every year. “In college, covering the gaps is extremely important. I’m always telling the left fielder and right fielder no to play straight up and eliminate extra bases when possible.” As for leading off, Nelson also gets to use his speed. “It’s more about contact than power,” says Nelson. “But I’m I’m very adjustable to wherever I play. I’ve batted in the 3-hole. “Wherever you put me I will adjust to that role.” Nelson helped Grand Valley State go 30-22 in 2022. “We definitely played our hearts out,” says Nelson. “But with talent we have we can definitely do better.” Jamie Detillion is the Lakers head coach. “He definitely vouches for his guys,” says Nelson of Detillion. “He’s a very very caring guy and wants to be a winner. “He’s aways listening to input and adjusts to our liking (as players) while maintaining his role.” Born and raised in South Bend, Nelson first fell for the game as a T-ball player at South East Side Little League. He played travel ball for the Michiana Scrappers, South Bend Silver Hawks and Hitters Edge. He played varsity baseball for four years at John Adams High School in South Bend, where he earned the all-academic award four times and was a three-time team MVP, two-time team captain and first-team all-Northern Indiana Conference as a senior. Mike Cass was the Eagles head coach when Nelson graduated in 2017. “(Cass) wanted to win and develop the program,” says Nelson. “He made calls for me to (Kellogg Community College in Battle Creek, Mich.) and that helped quite a bit. “It’s about being respectful to those above you so they can show respect back to you.” Nelson played for the Kellogg Bruins in 2018 and 2019. “I had two amazing coaches (head coach Eric Laskovy and assistant head coach Jim Miller),” says Nelson. “It was tough love. They taught me a lot on and off the field.” Now 6-foot-3 and 195 pounds, Nelson left high school weighing about 170. “I was pretty scrawny,” says Nelson. “Kellogg is a blue collar athletic program and school. You’re taught to work hard. “Eating right was the No. 1 thing. I think I worked out for three or four years without missing a day (minus Sundays) “It helped me become a little bigger and made my body as healthy as it’s been.” Nelson played in the South Bend men’s league each summer from 2017-21. He was with the Mishawaka Brewers until joining the South Bend Royals in 2021. In 2022, he played 21 games with the Great Lakes Summer Collegiate League’s Muskegon (Mich.) Clippers and hit .293 with four homers and 16 RBIs before coming home to earn some money for college. Spencer is the youngest of Bill and Sheila Nelson’s five children. Indianapolis-based educational administrator Naomi is the oldest, followed by consultant to medical companies Tiara and IBM employee Madison in California and software engineer Connor in Arizona. Bill Nelson is a retired salesman. Sheila Nelson is a hairdresser.
Spencer Nelson (Grand Valley State University Photo)
Spencer Nelson (Kellogg Community College Photo)
Spencer Nelson (Grand Valley State University Photo)
Matt Tyner still carries a fervor around the diamond.
It just shows itself in a different way.
Tyner, who began his college baseball coaching career at Butler University in Indianapolis in the early 1990’s and also guided early Indiana Bulls travel teams during the summer, is heading into his fourth season at Towson (Md.) University.
At 62 and in a year where he lost his wife, Tyner has a different perspective.
“I’m pretty intense as a competitor,” says Tyner. “As you age you don’t lose your intensity, it becomes a different kind of focus. I’m a little more cerebral. Yelling and screaming might have worked in the ‘90s. That doesn’t work now. You have to think about who you’re talking to.
“Hopefully I’ve calmed down. As you mature, you go from thinking it’s your team to how can I serve the kid? Or how can I share the information I’ve learned in my 40 years in the game?”
It’s a horizontal relationship. Tyner lets his assistants take their strengths and run with them.
“I’m not ego-driven anymore,” says Tyner. “We can all learn something from each other and coaches and kids benefit.”
Coaching friends — like Tony Vittorio — are quick to point out when Tyner might lose sight of what his job is.
“I’m a father first and a coach second,” says Tyner. “I don’t have just one son, I have 38 his year. I’m older than all my coaches, so I have more even more sons.”
Tyner was a standout in Decatur, Ill., playing for Ray DeMoulin (a bird dog scout for the Cincinnati Reds who allowed Tyner to try out at 15) at MacAthur High School and Lee Handley (who played in the Chicago Cubs and Los Angeles Dodgers systems) as American Legion manager.
After Tyner went undrafted by Major League Baseball, a coin flip was used to decide where he would venture to play college ball. Heads meant he’d try to walk on at the University of Miami (Fla.). Tails would send him to Arizona State University.
The coin came up heads. Tyner went to Florida, made the Hurricanes roster and played on College World Series teams in 1978, 1979 and 1980, earning Baskin Robbins Player of the Year honors in that final season.
At Miami, Tyner was around coaching legends Ron Fraser and Skip Bertman. The young outfielder marveled at how the two baseball minds could anticipate what was going to happen in a game.
“How did they do that?” says Tyner. who refers to Bertman as a walking baseball encyclopedia. “I hovered closed to him. His sixth sense was incredible.”
Fraser called them the “Miami Greyhounds.”
“I felt I was on a track team,” says Tyner. “That’s how much we ran. We were in shape.”
Before the current 56-game spring limit in NCAA Division I, Miami typically played more than 100 games counting fall and spring.
In 1981, he enjoyed his best offensive and worst defensive season. The parent Orioles had decided to move Cal Ripken Jr. from third base to shortstop and decided to make Tyner into a third sacker. But the hot corner proved pretty hot for him and he made 20 errors in 51 games at third for the Hagerstown Suns.
Fans down both baselines let him know about it with a group of ladies on the third base side pointing out the places where the ball struck the “human dartboard.” Hagerstown spectators donned hard hats on the first base side in case of errant Tyner throws.
His roommate on the road was pitcher Julian Gonzalez. During a game in Salem, Va., after Tyner committed his third error, Hagerstown manager Grady Little came to the mound. Gonzalez told the skipper that his roomie had to go.
There was a bus accident the first weekend of season. The vehicle landed on its side.
“I felt something pop in my back way down low,” says Tyner. “24 hours later I couldn’t move. I missed over 30 games that summer.
At the plate, Tyner was locked in, hitting .301 with 31 home runs and 113 runs batted for the Suns in 1981.
After that, Tyner went back to the outfield where he vied with Drungo Hazewood for the unofficial title of best arm in the Orioles organization.
He would go on to belt 79 home runs in 365 games, playing for Hagerstown in 1981 and 1983 and the Charlotte O’s in 1982 and 1983. Multiple surgeries for bone chips in his right elbow put and end to Tyner’s pro career.
“I put my arm through a little bit of abuse,” says Tyner. “I was a quarterback and pitched in high school. Who knows what I did? It didn’t fail me for five more years. At Miami, I had a really good arm.”
Little later managed the Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers. Hart became a successful front office man for the Cleveland Indians and Atlanta Braves and as a TV analyst.
Tyner calls Hart the quintessential manager-type manager.
“He was a true professional guy,” says Tyner of Hart. “He’s let you do what you needed to do. Grady Little was more hands-on. They were both pretty successful in their own way.
“I got lucky. I played so some great managers and coaches.”
In spring training games with the Orioles, Tyner shared the dugout with current manager Earl Weaver and future managers Joe Altobelli and Ray Miller.
“I’m not sure it gets much better than that,” says Tyner.
It was while coming to Indianapolis to finish his degree at Concordia University that Tyner connected with Butler head coach Steve Farley and began coaching for the Bulldogs. The first go-round, he was on Farley’s staff from 1993-97.
A relationship with the Bulls led to the press box and stands that are there to this day.
At the time, Dave Taylor was president of the organization and Craig Moore was head coach of the 17U team. Tyner started out with the 15U squad.
After coaching four years at Butler making $325 per semester, Tyner decided it was time to make money for his family — wife Laura, daughter Lindsay and son Matthew and got into communication sales and real estate.
Lindsay Dempsey, who is worked as a Registered Nurse, is now 36, married with two children and living Switzerland. Matthew Tyner, 33, is married and a finance and operations manager in Indianapolis.
When Matthew became a teenager, the Bulls approached his father about coaching a new 13U team with Jeremy Guler. The next year, Matt Tyner and Jeff Jamerson coached their sons Matthew and Jason on the 14U Bulls.
“We had top-shelf athletes way ahead of their time,” says Tyner of a team that featured future pros Lance Lynn (Brownsburg), Tommy Hunter (Cathedral) and J.B. Paxson (Center Grove). “It was fun to watch them play.”
Since Matthew was not at that elite level, he switched after that at played for the Indiana Mustangs based out of RoundTripper Sports Academy in Westfield, a facility run by Chris Estep. Indiana High School Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Famer Dave Alexander was there to help. He covered the costs for many Mustangs activities.
“He imparted so much baseball knowledge on these kids,” says Tyner of Alexander, who was integral current baseball fields at Purdue University as well as Indianapolis Bishop Chatard High School, where Matthew Tyner played for Trojans head coach Mike Harmon and graduated in 2005. “What a treat that was.”
A few years later, Matt Tyner got the itch to coach baseball again. This time Farley could pay him a living wage and he went back to work at Butler in August 2007. Pendleton Heights graduate Jason Jamerson was a Bulldog senior in 2009.
Farley took Tyner to his first American Baseball Coaches Association convention in 1994. There he got to meet up again with Fraser and Bertman and soaked up the baseball know-how.
“They made me feel like a king and there was one great speaker after the next for 2 1/2 days,” says Tyner. “As a coach you can’t be everything to everybody. But I’m going to use this nugget and I’m going to use that nugget.
“That’s money well-spent.”
In the summer of 2010, Tyner was offered the head coaching position at Bellarmine University in Louisville, Ky. Knights athletic director Scott Wiegandt had been a Triple-A Louisville teammate of Tracy Woodson, a former big league third baseman, Fort Wayne Wizards manager who was then Valparaiso University head coach.
Farley, Woodson and University of Indianapolis head coach Gary Vaught gave Tyner their endorsement.
“We made some serious strides in that program,” says Tyner, who coached then-NCAA Division II Bellarmine to 26-26 and 27-23 marks in 2011 and 2012 with a Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference title and an appearance in the regional tournament championship game against the Grand Valley State University the second year.
Brandon Tormoehlen, now head coach at Brownstown (Ind.) Central High School, was on Tyner’s coaching staff.
Woodson became head coach at the University of Richmond (Va.) and called Tyner to be his recruiting coordinator and hitting coach. It was a post he held for four seasons.
“We had some pretty strong offensive teams,” says Tyner of his time with the Spiders.
Then Towson reached out and hit Tyner was an offer to be the Tigers head coach.
“The first two years at Towson was a challenge for all of us,” says Tyner, who saw his teams go 13-42 in 2018 and 14-39 in 2019. “We are process-driven and not results-driven. Took awhile for those entrenched in a different system to get it.
“Last year was their chance to shine.”
Indianapolis native Laura Anne Tyner passed away Feb. 10 in her hometown and Matt took a leave of absence at Towson. Matt and Laura were wed in 1983. She taught children with special needs and spent 20 years in real estate management.
With former Butler and Purdue University assistant Miller running the team, the 2020 Towson Tigers went 7-8 before the COVID-19 shutdown.
Tyner went down to see the team play in the opener of a weekend series in Miami. It turned out to be a pitchers’ dual. The Hurricanes held on for a 2-1 Feb. 28 victory. Freshman catcher Burke Camper just barely missed a home run in the top of the ninth inning.
“It was a game for the ages,” says Tyner. “It was unbelievable for me to watch and be a part of.”
A few days later, it was decided between Tyner and Towson athletic director Tim Leonard that the coach would come back to the program in mid-March.
“I needed baseball more than baseball needed me,” says Tyner, who got back in time to see the season prematurely halted with the campus being closed and all classes going online. He came back to Indianapolis.
When things opened back up, players were placed in summer leagues. This fall, the Tigers worked out with social distancing and other COVID precautions.
“It was the most competitive for all of us since I’ve been here,” says Tyner. “We have a chance to be pretty good (2021).”
Towson is a member of the Colonial Athletic Association. The Tigers are not fully-funded. There are 6.2 scholarships available and the NCAA Division I limit is 11.7.
“God love the AD and president of this university (Tim Leonard and Dr. Kim Schaztel),” says Tyner. “They’ve done a phenomenal job of keeping us afloat.
“They don’t come any better.”
Matt Tyner was introduced as head baseball coach at Towson (Md.) University prior to the 2018 season. (Towson University Video)Matt Tyner, a former Butler University assistant and coach with the Indiana Bulls, is heading into his fourth season as head baseball coach at Towson (Md.) University in 2021. (Towson University Photo)
It was a week before the start of the 2019 season and the Lakers suddenly had a need for a pitching coach.
GVSU graduate assistant Jon Newman played for Riggleman at Spring Arbor. Grand Valley head coach Jamie Detillion contacted the veteran skipper about his interest.
“He was looking for someone with some experience and provide a different perspective,” says Riggleman, who accepted the invitation and went about assessing the pitching staff while relishing the idea of creating a competitive culture and mentoring young coaches (Detillion, Newman and Cody Grice).
Riggleman made it clear he did not want to step back into the world of recruiting or administrative details, but he had plenty to offer.
“Teaching and watching guys get better still lights a fire,” says Riggleman. “It gives me a tremendous amount of satisfaction.”
Two years prior to Riggleman’s arrival at GVSU, the Lakers had been focused on velocity enhancement programs.
“The ability to command the strike zone was really, really in jeopardy,” says Riggleman. “We walked away from all those (velocity-building) things.”
Pitchers were asked to — do just that — pitch.
“How do you set people up and put them away?,” says Riggelman, who is back for the 2020 season. “How do you force contact on your terms?”
Riggleman has been refining mechanics and mechanical efficiency and getting his hurlers to attack hitters, putting them in defensive (ball-strike) counts.
GVSU pitchers are asked to command two-seam fastballs in order to create late movement while also developing an effective change-up.
“Guys are spending plenty of time working on breaking balls,” says Riggleman.
“There’s so much quality in players across the board at the Division II level,” says Riggleman. “There are no breaks here. Every single day is going to be a battle.
“How you go about preparing teams becomes the critical issue.”
At his previous stops, Riggleman prepared his players like they were going to compete at the highest level.
“We made practices competitive and demanding,” says Riggleman. “We forced failure on them and made them make adjustments because that it what’s going to happen in the game.
“We have to find a way to replicate. That’s what I’m trying to do at Grand Valley.”
It was early in his career that Riggleman figured out the kind of coach he wanted to be.
“Coaching is an opportunity to help kids develop in their personal, spiritual and emotional lives and athletically,” says Riggleman. “So many life lessons can be pulled out of this game. I’ve tried to take advantage of that.”
As a college coach, Riggleman knows that parents are turning over their sons to guide them in the right way and he does not take that responsibility lightly.
“I had an obligation to do that,” says Riggleman. “Kids are a lot more important than I am.”
When Riggleman was at Mount Vernon Nazarene and in his formative years developing his coaching philosophy, Bob Starcher was head coach at Malone College in Canton, Ohio.
“He took me under his wing,” says Riggleman of Starcher whom he met in the fall of 1979. “I saw guy who put incredibly competitive teams on the field and truly loved his guys. It was a model I gravitated toward.
“You don’t stay in coaches for 40-plus years and enjoy doing it, if you’re doing it exclusively to win games. I never lost sight of what I was doing and why I was doing it — developing young men.
“You’ve got to demand a great deal, but you’ve got to love them at the same time.”
Riggleman learned how to get players to exhibit quiet toughness and be very competitive yet humble. His successor at Mount Vernon, Keith Veale, went into the NAIA Hall of Fame Jan. 3 in Nashville and Sam and wife Kathy were there for the induction.
Riggleman played for ABCA Hall of Famer Burbridge, who won 1,003 games and retired as Spring Arbor head coach after the 2004 season, then coached alongside him before taking over the Cougars program.
“He had such an instrumental impact on me,” says Riggleman of Burbridge.
The two roomed together at the ABCA convention and shared many ideas about baseball and life.
In 2000, Burbridge was head coach for a team of all-stars that went to the Czech Republic and Riggleman was brought along as pitching coach. The following year, Riggleman was head coach on the tour.
Jones preceded Riggleman at SIU.
“His style was really different and unique,” says Riggleman of the former Salukis and University of Illinois boss. “He was and tremendous game coach. Very intuitive.”
Riggleman spent five seasons (1995-99) in Mishawaka, Ind., at Bethel College (now Bethel University).
“We had a great run there,” says Riggleman, who went 176-88 with two Crossroads League championships (1997 and 1998) and a league tournament title (1998) and led Bethel to three NCCAA national runner-up finishes. “A lot of fun and some really good teams there.”
He often got a chance to right son Jeremie’s name into the lineup at shortstop.
“My single greatest highlight of my coaching career was to coach Jeremie at that time,” says Riggleman, who is the grandfather of four. Jeremie Riggleman is now an assistant professor of art at Taylor University. Sam and Kathy’s daughter, Sarah, is married and lives in Granger, Ind.
Sam Riggleman enters his second season as baseball pitching coach at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Mich., in 2020. He was a head coach for 40 years, including five at Bethel College in Mishawaka, Ind., and won over 1,000 games. (Grand Valley State University Photo)
“It means a lot to me,” says Maloney of the recognition of his willingness to persevere. “They saw me as hard-working and blue collar. Not a lot of people know it, but I played through a lot of injuries in college.”
It’s that kind of approach that Maloney is taking as the pitching coach at Wayne State University, an NCAA Division II program in Detroit. He is a graduate student pursuing his masters degree in business.
‘This team is a really special team to be around,” says Maloney, 24. “It’s a great group of hard-working kids. They make my job easy.
“We’re getting after it.”
Before transferring to Delta High School in Muncie, Ind., midway through his senior year (2013), Maloney attended Chelsea (Mich.) High School — located about 60 miles from Detroit — and played baseball and football for the Bulldogs. Alex transferred to Delta when father Rich Maloney returned as Ball State in Muncie as head baseball coach.
Terry Summers was head coach at Delta when Alex and younger brother Nick played for the Eagles.
Alex Maloney, the oldest of Rich and Kelle Maloney’s three children (Nick is a Ball State senior and daughter Natalie is a BSU freshmen) was recruited to Ball State as a two-way player. Injuries limited his pitching appearances. He worked nine stints and 8 2/3 innings in his freshman and junior seasons. He was primarily a shortstop or third baseman.
After playing in 227 games (226 as a starter), Maloney graduated from Ball State in 2017 with a degree in Political Science and a minor in Business Information Systems, played a few games with the Birmingham Bloomfield Beavers of the United Shore Professional Baseball League in Utica, Mich., then signed as a free agent with the Chicago White Sox organization. He played 23 games in 2017 and was released in June 2018.
He was on his way to testing to becoming a Michigan state trooper when Wayne State contacted him about continuing his education while coaching baseball. He started at WSU in August.
“Coaching or federal law enforcement — I’m debating each one I want to do,” says Maloney. “This is a great opportunity. It gives me two years to figure out what I wanted to do in life.
“It’s a win-win for me. I’m getting great coaching experience.”
Maloney experienced what he calls a learning curve in the fall as he was getting to know his pitchers and they were getting to know him.
Though he was mostly a position player in college, he welcomes the chance to learn more about guiding pitchers.
Maloney has made the conversion from player to coach with the help of some mentors.
Besides his father and Wayne State’s Kelley and Hepner, there’s been Ball State pitching coaching coach Dustin Glant and University of Alabama at Birmingham volunteer assistant Ron Polk (who was a head coach for 35 years, including 29 at Mississippi State University) among others.
Maloney is also learning about NCAA Division II baseball, which is allowed to give nine scholarships (it’s 11.7 in D-I) and the teams on Wayne State’s schedule while also making connections with members of the Michigan High School Baseball Coaches Association and beyond. The MHSBCA staged its annual state clinic Jan. 11-12 in Mt. Pleasant.
The Wayne State Warriors are part of the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (with Ashland, Davenport, Ferris State, Grand Valley State, Lake Superior State, Michigan Tech, Northern Michigan, Northwood, Purdue Northwest, Saginaw Valley State and Wisconsin-Parkside).
Alex Maloney, a 2017 Ball State University graduate, is now baseball pitching coach and a graduate assistant at Wayne State University in Detroit. (Wayne State University Photo)
Buying into the multi-sport athlete idea and feeding off the success of other sports, the LaVille Lancers is enjoying a stellar 2018 season under fourth-year head coach Brian Lawler.
Heading into a home game Friday, May 18 against John Glenn, the Lancers are 20-2.
LaVille ran the table in the Hoosier North Athletic Conference, going 14-0. Pioneer (10-4) was second, followed by Knox (8-6), Winamac (7-6), North Judson (7-7), Triton (5-9), Caston (4-9) and Culver Community (0-14). Winamac is to visit Caston in the final HNAC game Friday, May 18.
“We’re a small school,” says Lawler, who coaches and teaches physical education in a LaVille Junior/Senior High building with around 350 students in the top four grades. “We believe in sharing athletes and providing opportunities for kids all year-round.
“We want to give them the best experience they can.”
Athletic director/head football coach Will Hostrawser leads a staff which coordinates their summer workouts so athletes can attend sessions in multiple sports.
Hostrawser has a baseball coaching background.
“He lets all his coaches coach,” says Lawler of Hostrawser. “But he’s always there if we want to pick his brain about something.”
As for success breeding success, two examples come in football and boys basketball. The Lancers went 8-5 on the gridiron last fall and 23-1 on the hardwood last winter.
The past four years, LaVille is 35-14 in football and 76-24 in boys basketball under head coach Michael Edison. Corey Duncan’s girls basketball squad was 16-8 in 2017-18.
Before coming to LaVille, Lawler was a St. Joseph assistant for eight seasons on the staff of John Gumpf.
What does being a multi-sport athlete mean to him?
“Competing throughout the year and learning lessons from different coaches,” says Lawler. “It’s about being coachable and that translates into whatever sport that kid is doing at the time.”
The HNAC plays home-and-home two-game series with some doubleheaders, making it extra important to develop pitching depth.
“It forces you not the see that No. 1 twice,” says Lawler, who is assisted by Mark Elliot, Scott Wierczorek and Bryce Bustamante. “And with the pitch count rules (1 to 35 pitches requires 0 days rest; 36 to 60 requires 1 day; 61 to 80 requires 2 days; 81 to 100 requires 3 days; and 101 to 120 requires 4 days) and our small roster (there’s 15 players in the program for a varsity and junior varsity schedule), we need to get as many pitchers as we can.”
The 2017 Lancers went 20-7 and graduated some quality senior pitchers. The current team has just one senior — first baseman Tyler Hollon. There is also a good mix of juniors, sophomores and a few freshmen.
Lawler counts catcher Reese Gallup and left-handed pitcher/outfielder Devon Schoff among the junior standouts and third baseman Jimmy Fischer, first baseman Isaiah Herbster, right-hander/outfielder Nick Moore and shortstop/right-hander Connor Wieczorek as some of the top sophomores.
LaVille plays its home games on its campus near Lakeville though it does have access to nearby Newton Park should field conditions call for a change of venue.
The Lancers’ non-conference schedule includes Argos, Bethany Christian, Bremen, Culver Military, Jimtown, John Glenn, Oregon-Davis, Rochester, South Bend Adams and South Central.
LaVille is in the IHSAA Class 2A Westview Sectional along with Bremen, Central Noble, Eastside, Prairie Heights and Westview. The Lancers have won three sectional baseball titles (1968, 1974, 1991).
Lawler and wife Sara reside in South Bend.
LaVille Junior/Senior High School baseball coach Brian Lawler (right) poses with lone 2018 senior Tyler Hollon. The Lancers have reached the 20-win plateau again this spring.
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