UPLAND, Ind. – Kansas Wesleyan Baseball saw its season come to a close on Thursday as the Coyotes dropped a pair of games to the Grand View Vikings in the NAIA National Championship Opening Round at Taylor University.
Grand View claimed the first game of the championship series 5-3, then booked their trip to the AVISTA NAIA World Series with a 16-2 win in the second game.
In the first game, the Coyotes had a 2-0 lead in the third inning as
Coulson Riggs walked and two batters later
Jacob Williamson smashed a 2-run homer to give the Coyotes the lead.
The score stayed the same until the bottom of the sixth inning when Grand View hit a 3-run home run to take a 3-2 lead.
In the seventh, the Vikings added two more runs taking advantage of an error by the Coyotes in the inning.
The Coyotes tried to rally in the ninth as
Joe Finder homered and
Blake Dale followed with a double to bring the tying run to the plate. KWU could not push another run across and dropped the first championship game 5-3.
Riley Gwin took the loss allowing two runs on three hits in an inning of work. Starter
Shaw Lee went five and a third innings, allowing two runs on four hits.
Tyler Favretto had two hits for the Coyotes.
After a short break, the teams met again for the winner-take-all game.
Grand View took an early lead in the top of the second with a homerun, but in the bottom of the inning, the Coyotes tied things up on another solo homer by Finder.
The Vikings took control of the game in the top of the third, scoring six runs to take a 7-1 lead.
Grand View added another run in the fourth and then added five more in the fifth to extend the lead.
Eric Romero hit his first homerun of the season in the bottom of the seventh but it wasn't enough to spark a rally for the Coyotes.
Ruvalcaba, Finder, Dale,all had two hits for the Coyotes.
Brett Maddock suffered the loss allowing seven runs on seven hits in two and two-thirds innings.
The Coyotes close the 2025 season with a 41-15 overall record, marking the third consecutive season that KWU has won 40-plus games, the first such streak in school history.
