Hall of Fame
The 1968 Buena Vista baseball team, led by the late BVU Hall of Fame Coach, Jay Beekmann ’42, is the fifth team to be enshrined into the BVU Athletics Hall of Fame. The team posted a 16-4 overall regular season record (8-2 in conference play) and finished second in the league standings.
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Buena Vista started the historic season with a spring break trip that included a three-game series against the University of Arkansas. The Beavers took two of three games from the Razorbacks. The Beavers would go on to qualify for the NAIA College World Series thanks to a home run in the ninth inning off the bat of the late BVU Hall of Famer, Larry Biittner, to defeat Winona State in a game played in Storm Lake. The Beavers trailed in that game, 3-0, and pulled back even at 3-3 at the time of Biittner’s long ball. Starting pitcher Dan Southard, working on only two days of rest, retired the final 13 Winona State batters to earn the victory.
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The team, however, would come up just short in its first two World Series games played at St. Joseph, Mo., and finished the season at 22-7 overall. The Beavers dropped a narrow 4-3 decision to William Jewell College followed by a tough 7-2 setback against Georgia Southern University. Biittner hit .357 on the year and was the top hitter for a team that hit .345 overall, which still sits as the second-best single-season mark for a team in program history. The Beavers also posted 17 triples and blasted 31 home runs that season, a pair of marks that remain in the top five all-time at BVU. Bittner was also 8-0 on the mound for the Beavers with a 0.91 ERA. Bittner, along with junior Doug Smith and freshman Pat McMullen, were named to the all-conference team. Biittner was later named a Second Team All-American.
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