The Lancers held their annual postseason awards banquet on Monday, May 12 at Cordova High School.

RANCHO CORDOVA, CA (MPG) - The Cordova Lancers varsity baseball program held its annual awards banquet on Monday, May 12 at Cordova High School. The team holds the event every year following the completion of their spring season as a way to honor all the hard work that the team put in, with individual awards being given to players deserving of specific honors as selected by head coach Scott Ahlstrom and his staff.

The teams’ top award - Player of The Year - was given to junior standout pitcher/infielder Levi Nyberg, who led the Lancers in multiple statistical categories once again. His .543 batting average was first in Division II within the CIF (California Interscholastic Federation) Sac Joaquin Section, along with slugging percentage (.790) and on base percentage (.644).

From left are Junior Levi Nyberg, freshman Nate Jones and sophomore Bro Ahlstrom, who were voted First Team All-Metro League players this spring. 

Additional awards were presented as follows: The Coaches’ Awards went to junior first baseman/outfielder Landon Gaskill and sophomore pitcher/infielder Nathan Tran. The Most Improved Player Award was given to freshman infielder Conner Meade. The Scholar Athlete Award was awarded to sophomore Landon Gaskill, and the Leadership Award was presented to senior first baseman/outfielder Daniel Swick.

Ahlstrom feels it is very important to honor his athletes and reward them for a job well done after grinding through a long season while remaining positive and team players.

The Lancers junior varsity team also had players given awards at the event.

“I like to recognize the glue guys, the guys who might not get a lot of runs but do a lot of important stuff behind the scenes to help us run as a team,” Ahlstrom said. “I like to recognize those guys and let people know that even though you may not have seen their name in the box scores a lot, these guys are doing things behind the scenes to help us run smoothly.”

In addition, Ahlstrom passed out First Team All-Metro League honors to Nyberg, freshman pitcher/outfielder Nathaniel Jones, and sophomore infielder Bro Ahlstrom. Those awards were voted on by the other teams' coaches within the Metro League, with players selected based on their on-field production along with how they are viewed as competitors and their positive interactions with opposing teams. Seeing his players receive that honor meant a lot to Ahlstrom.

Multiple other Lancers received team awards.

“I’m proud,” Ahlstrom said. “You vote for other teams’ players and can’t vote for your own. You’re only supposed to get two because of where we finished, but they put three of our guys in there. A couple of the coaches got ahold of me and told me why they voted for those guys, and it was just good to hear. Some things were baseball related, and some things weren’t. The coaches talked about their demeanor and having good conversations with them on the field. They saw that they were really good individuals as well as players.”

Congratulations to all of the award winners this year and to the entire Cordova Lancers’ varsity team for a season that resulted in their first-ever play-in berth!