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Grand Lake will look to extend its league-high 18-game winning streak against Lima.
It has already been a memorable season for the Grand Lake Mariners in the Great Lakes Summer Collegiate League, but their upcoming series against Lima has the potential to top the already long list of highlights.
The four-game series between the North and South division leaders begins tonight at 5 p.m. at Montgomery Field in Celina with a pair of seven-inning games. The teams then head to Lima on Wednesday, before wrapping up play on Thursday back in Celina.
It is well documented the direction Grand Lake is heading in. A year removed from a 10-win season, the Mariners now boast a record of 27-5 to lead the South division. Led by coach Mike Roberts, the Mariners take an 18-game winning streak into the series. They come into the week after a weekend sweep of Flag City, which saw the team score 10 or more runs in two of the three games against the Sluggers. During the GLSCL record-long win streak, the Mariners have scored 189 runs and held opponents to 56 runs.
On the season, the offensive production has come from everywhere. Solomon Harwood, Huston Dunn, Maalik Perkins and Luke Wildes were all selected to the GLSCL All-Star Game as starters in the field, and all play a part in Grand Lake's league-best .289 batting average. The club has hit 21 home runs on the year to also lead the league, while their mark of 73 extra-base hits are second only to Muskegon's 79.
On the mound for the Mariners it's been much of the same that has led the team to a 3.90 earned-run-average, which is second in the league to Lima. All-Stars Taylor Seay, Bryce Eggleton and Alex Dues lead the way, and deservedly so.
Of pitchers with over 30 innings pitched on the year, Dues' ERA of 2.40 is second in the league. Dues, a Fort Recovery graduate, throws a unique sidearm delivery, and it has helped the righty top the league in saves with five and has his tied for first in wins, also with five.
Seay, whose 31 strikeouts are seventh in the league, has thrown 31 innings on the year to lead the team. Eggleton aids the effort with a 2-0 record on the year and had racked up 18 strikeouts in 18 innings of work.
Lima comes into the series with a mark of 24-8 on the year to lead the North division. The Locos are 7-3 in their last 10 games, and have plenty of firepower to keep up with the Mariners. They will send five players and coach Chad Ehrnsberger to the All-Star game, which is a division-high.
Jimmy Dionne and Cameron Greene lead the way at the plate. Both players boast a batting average over .400 and are 1-2 in the league in the category and are on the All-Star roster. Greene's four home runs lead the team. Tyler VanSumeren will join them at the showcase, and is fourth in the league in RBIs with 26. Cameron Owens' 21 stolen bases provides the lineup with a threat on the bases.
Pitching has led the way recently, with Garrett Byrd the ace of the rotation. He sits at 5-0 on the year with a 1.75 ERA and 32 strikeouts in 25 2/3 innings pitched. B.C. Harrison leads the team in innings pitched with just over 31. His 3.73 ERA has helped the consistency of the team that gave up just three total runs against Xenia this past weekend. Grant Jolly was named GLSCL pitcher of the week for July 13 after he threw a seven-inning complete game shutout against Xenia on July 11.
Throughout the history of the GLSCL, it is hard to find a team more rooted in it than that of Lima. The Locos are the last of the original members of the league (they started as the Lima Blues), and are the most recent champions.
The club has won the league title eight times, including two of the past three, and finished runner-up six times. Ehrnsberger has been the coach for three of the title winning teams, and is looking to capture the team's second straight North division crown.
Grand Lake and Lima do share a fair amount of postseason history. The 1997 Mariners, led by then-coach Tom Brunswick, downed the Locos to win the league title and Grand Lake's second of three championships. In 2006, it took a big performance from Coldwater native Kyle Heyne on the mound in a must-win second game of the series for Grand Lake to beat Lima, the Mariners' last title victory.
On the flip side, the 2017 championship series saw Lima used a pair of shutouts to overcome a game 1 loss and beat the Mariners.
With both teams looking down at the rest of the league from their respective divisions mountaintops, it looks as if 2026 could be yet another chapter of the storied legacy for both clubs.
