Completed Event: Baseball at Stanford on May 9, 2025 , Win , 4, to, 3
Baseball
at Stanford
W 4-3
Grand Canyon University Athletics
Thursday, May 26
Mesa, Ariz.
7 p.m.
Grand Canyon
vs
Lamar
Insider: Son vs. father for Snedekers at WAC
5/26/2022 11:23:00 AM | Baseball, Paul Coro, Lopes Insider Blog
Lamar assistant Sean sees GCU catcher Sy's college game for 1st time
The cruel irony of Sean Snedeker being a career baseball man has been that he never could attend his son's college games … until this week.
An unexpected, unlikely sequence of college baseball events puts Grand Canyon catcher Sy Snedeker in the same WAC Tournament game as his father, the Lamar pitching coach, on Thursday night.
"It's going to be a fun night, pretty special," Sy said of the 7 p.m. game at Hohokam Stadium in Mesa.
The Snedekers never could envision this opportunity, even though Sy had grown up around his dad, Sean, in baseball, starting with the end of his minor-league pitching career and continuing for most of his youth via coaching jobs with the Chicago White Sox, Los Angeles Dodgers, Duke, Oral Roberts and Lamar.
This weekend's baseball alignment began with COVID wiping out nearly all of Sy's past two seasons at Princeton, where the Tigers ended their 2020 season after seven games and canceled all of their 2021 season.
That led to Sy's chance to be a graduate transfer for GCU, where head coach Andy Stankiewicz needed a veteran catcher and Sean knew GCU Vice President of Athletics Jamie Boggs from when she worked at Duke and he and her husband, Matthew, were Blue Devils assistant coaches.
The next layer came with WAC expansion adding Lamar, but the conference kept to division scheduling that prevented GCU and Lamar from facing each other. But after each team won first-round tournament games on Wednesday, the season-long Snedeker hypotheticals move to the field with Sy's biggest supporter turning to an adversary.
"All year we've been joking around, like, 'We're going to win our side for sure. Hopefully, you guys can slide in there and face us,' " Sy said. "We've had fun with the whole situation and it's pretty awesome that it's coming to fruition.
"He tells everyone he was going to try to strike me out every time. He's uber-competitive, just like I am, and we're going to try to beat one another. We've been joking about what he's going to throw me all year, what he thinks my holes are in my swing and where he thinks he can get me out."
The Snedekers are not the Lopes' only heartwarming father-son reunion this week. GCU senior reliever Brodie Cooper-Vassalakis' father, Theo, surprised his son by coming from Australia to watch him play for the Lopes for the first time on Wednesday night. Cooper-Vassalakis threw a key shutout inning in the win.
The game is also a blessing for Sy's mother, Mary Jane, who has been darting between her husband's and son's games for years.
"So wish my boys luck and pray that I will hold it together while cheering for both of them, possibly at the same time," she posted on Twitter. "As far as the stars aligning, I know this is God's doing."
With returning GCU catcher Josh Buckley out injured until April 21, Snedeker started 19 games and made 24 appearances this season with 10 RBIs. He went 3 for 4 with a home run when the Lopes beat Texas Tech on April 6.
"This turned out to be a great experience," Sy said of GCU. "I've loved every second of it – the organization, the coaching staff, how Stank runs everything, Phoenix in general, the campus and students at GCU. It's definitely been a blessing. If this is my last year, it's the best place to finish my playing career. Hopefully, we can make a run here."
An unexpected, unlikely sequence of college baseball events puts Grand Canyon catcher Sy Snedeker in the same WAC Tournament game as his father, the Lamar pitching coach, on Thursday night.
"It's going to be a fun night, pretty special," Sy said of the 7 p.m. game at Hohokam Stadium in Mesa.The Snedekers never could envision this opportunity, even though Sy had grown up around his dad, Sean, in baseball, starting with the end of his minor-league pitching career and continuing for most of his youth via coaching jobs with the Chicago White Sox, Los Angeles Dodgers, Duke, Oral Roberts and Lamar.
This weekend's baseball alignment began with COVID wiping out nearly all of Sy's past two seasons at Princeton, where the Tigers ended their 2020 season after seven games and canceled all of their 2021 season.
That led to Sy's chance to be a graduate transfer for GCU, where head coach Andy Stankiewicz needed a veteran catcher and Sean knew GCU Vice President of Athletics Jamie Boggs from when she worked at Duke and he and her husband, Matthew, were Blue Devils assistant coaches.
The next layer came with WAC expansion adding Lamar, but the conference kept to division scheduling that prevented GCU and Lamar from facing each other. But after each team won first-round tournament games on Wednesday, the season-long Snedeker hypotheticals move to the field with Sy's biggest supporter turning to an adversary.
"All year we've been joking around, like, 'We're going to win our side for sure. Hopefully, you guys can slide in there and face us,' " Sy said. "We've had fun with the whole situation and it's pretty awesome that it's coming to fruition."He tells everyone he was going to try to strike me out every time. He's uber-competitive, just like I am, and we're going to try to beat one another. We've been joking about what he's going to throw me all year, what he thinks my holes are in my swing and where he thinks he can get me out."
The Snedekers are not the Lopes' only heartwarming father-son reunion this week. GCU senior reliever Brodie Cooper-Vassalakis' father, Theo, surprised his son by coming from Australia to watch him play for the Lopes for the first time on Wednesday night. Cooper-Vassalakis threw a key shutout inning in the win.
The game is also a blessing for Sy's mother, Mary Jane, who has been darting between her husband's and son's games for years."So wish my boys luck and pray that I will hold it together while cheering for both of them, possibly at the same time," she posted on Twitter. "As far as the stars aligning, I know this is God's doing."
With returning GCU catcher Josh Buckley out injured until April 21, Snedeker started 19 games and made 24 appearances this season with 10 RBIs. He went 3 for 4 with a home run when the Lopes beat Texas Tech on April 6.
"This turned out to be a great experience," Sy said of GCU. "I've loved every second of it – the organization, the coaching staff, how Stank runs everything, Phoenix in general, the campus and students at GCU. It's definitely been a blessing. If this is my last year, it's the best place to finish my playing career. Hopefully, we can make a run here."
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