Lawrence Vikings baseball team boasts one of the most prolific outfields in college baseball heading into conference tournament

APPLETON − The nickname wouldn’t have worked until Edan Perez discovered a bottle of hair dye.

Perez, the lone brunette in the group of starting Lawrence University outfielders, dyed his thick mane a golden hue this spring. Perez, Parker Knoll and Jacob Charon then went out and crushed opposing pitching all season. To call them “The Blonde Bombers” seems an apt moniker.

Lawrence’s starting outfield has hit a combined .432 with 36 doubles, five triples, 42 home runs and 164 runs batted in during 39 games this spring to make them perhaps the most productive outfield in all of NCAA Division III baseball.

Lawrence just wrapped up the Midwest Conference regular-season title and the Vikings host the MWC Tournament on Friday and Saturday and will play Cornell College at 10 a.m. Friday at Whiting Field. The winner of the four-team, double-elimination tournament receives an automatic berth to the NCAA Division III Tournament.

“We’ve seen flashes of it from all three of us,” said Knoll, a junior from Appleton and the center fielder. “We’re finally all doing it together all the time. It’s special that we’re able to hit as well as we can at the same time. It’s a lot of fun to be part of. I know if I mess up, there’s like four guys behind me that will do as good or better job than I will. It’s great to have that kind of firepower.”

Charon, an All-American in 2022, leads the team and ranks second in NCAA Division III with a .493 batting average. He’s pounded out 12 doubles, two triples, 14 homers and tied his own school record with 61 RBI.

“I really dialed in indoors during the winter. I was struggling during the winter,” said Charon, the senior right fielder. “We had our first games down in St. Louis and that didn’t go as well as I wanted to. We came back and I started taking my reps off the machine a little more seriously. Intensity and focus, that’s what I need to keep myself going. That started down in Florida.”

Charon hit .533, homered four times and drove in 12 runs over nine games in Florida. He hit for the cycle and was chosen for the D3baseball.com Team of the Week two weeks in a row. He hasn’t let up since.

“I don’t know if we’ve recognized how well we’ve been doing,” said Perez, a junior left fielder who enjoyed a breakout season in 2022. “We’re just doing what we have to do.”

Perez is hitting .405 with 12 doubles, two triples, 13 home runs and 53 RBI while making the transition from third base to the outfield.

“Last year, I was seeing beach balls out there,” Perez said with a laugh. “This year has been pretty similar. It’s on an upward trend.”

Knoll makes it a trio of hitters batting over .400 with a .403 average this spring. He has 12 doubles, one triple, 15 homers and 50 RBI to go with playing superb defense. Knoll has made multiple diving catches this season and his speed allows him to run down what look to be hits and turn them into outs.

“It’s really nice to be able to contribute to that side of the ball. I love doing it. If you get five or six or seven outs during the season that another team isn’t going to get, that gives us a huge advantage,” Knoll said.

It was no secret Lawrence had a talented group of outfielders returning this season. All three players have earned all-conference and all-region honors in the past but was this type of productivity expected?

“I thought definitely it was a possibility. These guys were making strides from last year to this year,” said Chris Krepline, who has coached the Vikings to a school-record 30-9 record this season. “They are just even-keeled. I say it a lot, ‘Don't ride the rollercoaster.’ They are just taking it as it happens.”

The players have found ways to make themselves better as they adjust to various situations. As teams have tried to pitch around the red-hot Charon, he adjusts to teams staying away from his power by hitting the ball the opposite way. Perez said he has improved the way he sees the ball by playing catch with star pitcher Quinn Berglin, whose multiple release points and arm angles are a challenge for any hitter.

“I think that’s something that has helped me a lot,” said Perez, commenting on the “filthy” stuff from Berglin. “It’s a thing where you’ve got to be loose. If you’re seeing the ball that day, it’s going to be a fun day.”

Krepline added their extremely competitive nature powers them along as well.

“They walk to the plate with a very good approach. In their minds, they simplify things and ultimately they're great competitors,” said Krepline, adding they feed on the achievements of each other.

“Eden sees Parker hit a bomb and Charon gets a base hit and then it’s so what are you going to do on the next one?”

The Vikings celebrated wildly in 2022 when they won the MWC Tournament and claimed their first berth in the NCAA Division III Tournament since 1979. As much as the records and accolades are nice, there’s no question what this season is about to this group of players.

“We had a taste of that two years ago and the team thought it was a great success,” Knoll said of the 2022 title. “I would never want to play in a conference tournament not at Whiting Field.”

Winning the tournament is goal No. 1 but just getting to the NCAA regional isn’t enough. The Vikings want to win games at the regional, and that’s never been done in program history.

“We’ve been working hard for it, early mornings in the winter and late nights, all the work in the fall and in the spring,” Knoll said. “This is what we’ve worked for. This is definitely the goal, for sure."

This article originally appeared on Appleton Post-Crescent: Lawrence Vikings baseball team boasts one of the most prolific outfields in college baseball heading into conference tournament