Gonzaga Athletic Hall of Fame
Examination of the hitting figures Lyons recorded at Gonzaga in the mid-1970s would seem to indicate the left-hander from the San Francisco Bay Area made his major contribution with his bat. Certainly, hitting was a large part of Lyons' game, but those who saw him play remember Lyons as a splendid fielding first baseman. "It was entertaining to just watch him during infield practice," one Spokane sports columnist said of Lyons. Lyons played for two of Gonzaga's winningest teams, the 1974 club that went 45-14 en route to a Big Sky Conference championship and the 43-23 team of 1976 that won the Northern Pacific Conference title. In his senior season, 1976, Lyons batted .395 and was the team leader in virtually every offensive category including stolen bases. He had a career batting average of .379 in 172 games with 231 hits, 42 doubles, 12 triples and 152 runs batted in, all high on Gonzaga's all-time list.
