Baseball Game Preview: Minnesota Valley Lutheran Chargers vs. Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop Thunderbirds

Minnesota Valley Lutheran has gone 9-1 against Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop recently and they'll look to pad the win column further on Tuesday. The Chargers will look to defend their home field against the Thunderbirds at 5:00 p.m. Minnesota Valley Lutheran's pitching crew has only allowed 4.1 runs per game this season, so Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop's hitters will have their work cut out for them.

Minnesota Valley Lutheran's usually-dominant pitching crew will be looking to make up for Monday's struggle, when New Ulm Cathedral hitters got past them. The Chargers lost 11-1 to the Greyhounds on Monday. The Chargers have struggled against the Greyhounds recently, as the game was their seventh consecutive lost meeting.

Minnesota Valley Lutheran saw four different players step up and record at least one hit. One of them was Joshua Vander Plas, who went 1-for-2 with one triple and one run. That triple marked the first that Vander Plas has hit this season.

Meanwhile, Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop waltzed into their match on Monday with two straight wins... but they left with three. They walked away with a 5-2 win over the Wolverines.

The team relied heavily on Luke Bastian, who went a perfect 3-for-3 with one run, one double, and one RBI. Those three hits gave him a new career-high. Another player making a difference was Kaden Rieke, who went 2-for-3 with two RBI and one run.

Minnesota Valley Lutheran's loss was their first in the conference, dropping their conference record down to 3-1 and their overall record down to 9-7. As for Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop, their victory bumped their record up to 6-12.

Minnesota Valley Lutheran skirted past Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop 6-5 in their previous meeting back in May of 2024. Will the Chargers repeat their success, or do the Thunderbirds have a new game plan this time around? We'll find out soon enough.