While many stu­dents headed home for the hol­i­day week­end, the Bulldog soft­ball team stayed in Big Rapids to host division-rival Grand Valley State.

The Bulldogs were outscored 25–15 in a four-game series that the Lakers dom­i­nated, top­ping Ferris 3–1 in the series.

After an 11–4 drub­bing from the Lakers in the first game and a close 6–5 deci­sion for Grand Valley in the sec­ond con­test, Ferris held off a furi­ous seventh-inning rally to secure a 3–2 vic­tory in the third game. Grand Valley scored two runs on five hits in the bot­tom of the sev­enth, but the Bulldogs wrapped up the game when GVSU’s Maggie Kerrigan was gunned down at the plate try­ing to score the tying run after Katie Martin put the ball in play.

The Bulldogs had a chance to earn a series split in the night­cap of the April 23 double-header, but an 11^th inning RBI sin­gle from Laker Kayleigh Bertram gave the Lakers a 3–2 vic­tory. Three of the four games in the series were deter­mined by a sin­gle run.

Junior third base­man Makenzi Peterson tal­lied five hits in the week­end series for the Bulldogs, dri­ving in two runs. After going hit­less in the first two con­tests of the series, sopho­more first base­man Lindsey Pettit notched three hits and RBIs respec­tively in the final two games.

Sophomore pitcher Dana Bowler went 1–2 on the week­end with two start­ing appear­ances and a relief appear­ance in the final game of the series. Bowler allowed 23 hits in the series along with 14 runs in her three pitch­ing efforts.

Grand Valley improved to 35–8 over­all and 21–5 in GLIAC con­fer­ence play after the week­end, improv­ing its first-place lead in the GLIAC North. Ferris dropped to 16–20 over­all while slip­ping to 13–11 in the conference.

The Bulldogs were sched­uled to face off against Northwood on April 20 prior to the Grand Valley series, but the series was resched­uled due to poor weather. The series is resched­uled for a double-header on April 26 at the FSU Varsity Softball Field. As the series will be done after dead­line, check fsu​torch​.com for results.

Ferris will fin­ish the sea­son on the road as the Bulldogs face off against Hillsdale in a four-game series on April 29–30 before end­ing regular-season play with a two-game series at Wayne State.

The Bulldogs will hope to improve their posi­tion in the con­fer­ence as post-season play will com­mence on May 6–8 as the GLIAC Tournament will get underway.