Holland Reporter

Grand Valley State University's football team, ranked 25th nationally, will travel to face Wayne State in their final regular season road game. The matchup is scheduled for a 1 p.m. kickoff.

Grand Valley State holds a strong record against Wayne State, leading the all-time series 40-6 and winning 35 of the last 36 meetings. Last year, the Lakers defeated Wayne State 51-28 in Allendale and won their most recent contest in Detroit by a score of 66-10. Since losing to Wayne State in 2019 at Lubbers Stadium, Grand Valley has secured five consecutive victories over them.

The Lakers are coached by Scott Wooster, now in his third year with the program. Under Wooster's leadership, Grand Valley has achieved a record of 26-7, made two NCAA Division II playoff appearances, and claimed a GLIAC title during his first two seasons.

Last weekend, Grand Valley lost to top-ranked Ferris State with a score of 38-31. During that game, quarterback Andrew Schuster completed 23 of 39 passes for 347 yards and three touchdowns. Brady Drogosh contributed with 62 rushing yards on twelve carries while tight end Evan Furtney set career highs with four catches for eighty-one yards and one touchdown. Defensively, Quinn Wills and Jimmy Downs each recorded twelve tackles.

Brady Drogosh leads the team in rushing this season with two hundred eleven yards and four touchdowns on the ground.

Defensively, Grand Valley ranks third nationally in red zone defense; opponents have scored on only half of their opportunities inside the twenty-yard line this season. Offensively, the Lakers are second in the GLIAC for red zone efficiency, converting more than eighty percent of their chances into points—fifteen out of twenty-one drives resulting in touchdowns.

Senior punter Trace Hrgich leads all players nationwide with an average punt distance of forty-six point eight yards per attempt.

In games against Davenport and Northern Michigan, Grand Valley's defense allowed just one hundred fifty-four total yards and no points across twelve second-half drives.

The Laker defense also stands tenth nationally for tackles for loss (fifty-two) and twenty-first for first downs allowed (one hundred twenty-eight through seven games).

Among individual achievements: senior linebacker Anthony Cardamone has accumulated two hundred thirty-five tackles over his career; junior linebacker Jimmy Downs recently surpassed one hundred career tackles; Kellen Reed has exceeded two thousand all-purpose yards; kicker Mathew Bacik made a career-long fifty-four yard field goal at Ferris State and is nearly perfect on extra points this season.

Ten different receivers caught passes versus Davenport as Sean Byrd led with three receptions for forty-eight yards and a touchdown. Riley Simpson set a school record earlier this year with a ninety-six yard fumble return touchdown at Pitt State.

Redshirt freshman quarterback Andrew Schuster was named GLIAC Offensive Player of the Week after throwing for three hundred ninety-one yards—setting a freshman single-game passing record—and four touchdowns against Black Hills State. In that game alone he completed passes to ten different receivers and engineered seven scoring drives under two minutes thirty-nine seconds each.

Attendance figures remain high at home games: Grand Valley has led national attendance charts for thirteen consecutive years and drew forty-one thousand one hundred sixty fans through its first two home contests this season.