I was there for all the fun! CWRU beat #1 ETBU, #2 Linfield, #5 Belhaven, and #6 Tufts ... only losing 2-1 to #10 Trine.

The Belhaven game was a wild one - down 10-0 and hitless after three innings, CWRU rallied for a 15-13 win.

CWRU is now ranked #2 in the latest NFCA rankings.

Quote from: Pat Coleman on January 18, 2025, 01:36:45 PMI have the sad task today of announcing the passing of a D3boards.com original, Warren Thompson. A retired professor of philosophy and religion at Lebanon Valley College, where he taught for 35 years, Warren was one of our original posters. He registered on Nov. 20, 1998, mere days after the message board was launched -- perhaps even the first day it went live. His userid was 7 -- mine is 6.

Warren had as a goal promoting Division III unity among various fans in the Middle Atlantic Conference, and would do so behind the scenes, as well as in public, by bringing them together over pizza, including at his home outside Annville, Pa. The so-called Pizza Summit was a concept which continued for several years beyond that first one in the summer of 1999 or 2000, and was the first time I met many of the posters of those early days.

He was an original Hall of Famer on this board, an honor, frankly, which was created first with him in mind. Nobody exemplified Division III basketball fandom better than Warren, and I was glad to think of him as a friend. And I am sorry for his loss.

Warren was 89. His obit follows:

https://lebtown.com/obituary/warren-k-a-thompson-1935-2025/

In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to fourdiamonds.donordrive.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.event&eventID=4514.

I will be making a donation. If you remember Warren, please consider doing so as well so that his wife, Ann, and his descendants know he was well-loved by this community which he loved so much.

Rest in peace, Warren.

I just saw Pat's post for the first time and it brought a tear to my eye. I was here for the early days of d3Hoops.com when the conversation was far less civilized than it is today - discourse which I definitely contributed to while I should have been working. I also remember the pizza summit and wishing I didn't live quite so far away in northern NJ.

Eventually I struck up an online friendship with Warren over LVC and Trenton State/TCNJ basketball - and particularly once my God Daughter decided to attend LVC.

As a golfer, every June a group of about 20 friends, acquaintances, and "special invites" whom we may or may not ever see again, would descend on Hershey Country Club, which was practically next door to Warren in Annville. We'd settle in for four days - with 36 holes/day, and plenty of betting, cigars, cards, and alcohol. I looked forward to it every year like it was Xmas in June.

In '99 or just prior to the birth of my first daughter in 2000, Warren and I decided to meet for a quick cup of coffee before I rushed off to the first tee on the first day I was in town. By year two I was arriving the night before and skipping the first 18 holes of golf the next day so I could have an extended breakfast with Warren. The next year it was breakfast and a tour of the LVC campus. By year three the guys making the golf schedule knew to leave me out for half the day because I was spending time with my "Philosophy buddy".

My last trip to Hershey was in 2006 - just prior to moving my family to Texas - a fact Warren, the Texas native, delighted in after I complained at length about the August heat in Houston after attending a business meeting there a couple years earlier.

After exchanging emails over the years we gradually lost touch. I often wondered whatever happened to Warren - and would check the boards here to see if he had posted anything new. I've wanted to tell him about my life in Texas, my daughter who's currently a D3 athlete in the UAA, and find out what he thinks about fun stuff like the transfer portal and NIL monies.

The best way I can think of to sum up my brief time with Warren is this: My Uncle Connie played in the NY Yankee organization for a very short time many, many years ago before developing Multiple Sclerosis. He was paralyzed - which is the only way I remembered him. He was a devout Catholic and his faith never wavered. His funeral was almost 40 years ago, but I'll always remember the moment that a priest came up to us and said that whenever he saw my Uncle at the VA he'd come away feeling like he got far more out of his time spent with my Uncle Connie than Uncle Connie ever got out of him. Not that I'm a priest, but hat's exactly how I felt about Warren each time I was walking to my car after breakfast.

Rest in peace, Warren. You are missed.

Castleton and New Paltz will be full-time members of the NJAC for all sports! I hope Castleton got their travel budget padded! I wonder if any other conference has churned through as many college football playing members in the past twenty+ years - all because Ramapo and NJCU axed their football programs and the NJAC wants to hang onto its AQ!.

Rowan  1957-
Montclair  1957-
TCNJ  1957-
Kean  1957-
WPU  1957-
NJCU  1957-Program dissolved 2002
Ramapo  1976-Program dissolved 1992
CNU  2015-
Salisbury  2015-
Cortland  2000-2014
Buffalo St.  2006-2011
Brockport St.  2008-2013
SUNY Morrisville  2008-2014
Western Conn.  2004-2012
Southern Va.  2014-2018
Frostburg St.  2015-2018
Wesley  2015-2020
Vermont State Castleton  2025-
SUNY New Paltz  2026-

Rowan loses to Ursinus by 44 and gives up 600 total yards while only gaining 100 themselves? I've been following the NJAC a longgg time and I can't remember Rowan ever getting handled like this outside of their playoff loss against MHB in 2013.

We stayed in Marshall with a number of other parents, including a few in our hotel from Wisconsin, whose team started the first inning of their first game around 3:00 PM - and then had to wait through torrential rain, thunderstorms, and tornado warnings - until their game resumed at 10:30 PM that night.

My daughter's team stayed in Longview with two other teams from their bracket. You're right about Marshall lacking any dining options. That said, I walked into an empty Rüeggenbach brewery with around 14 parents and they were kind enough to open their kitchen for us. Limited menu, but good food and beer on a hot day between our games which wound up being 12 HOURS APART (talk about things you'll never see in Division 1)!!!

I remember playing on one of those back fields in OKC during travel ball. It was a 100° day and the main stadium blocked any air flow. It was brutal. I talked with the now retired Penn head coach when my daughter had a visit there and she told me she'd never go back to that particular national tournament.

They had a banquet with guests attending in OKC?! No guests were allowed for the BBQ the NCAA held for the teams in Marshall!

We had a couple girls from Texas on our team who made a point of telling their teammates that Marshall was more like being in "West Shreveport, LA" than being in Texas.

D1 is booked in Oklahoma through 2035. It is what it is.

D3 was supposed to be at Salem, VA again, but it was moved to ETBU because their renovations weren't going to be completed on time.

While I was thrilled to not have to leave Texas to see the series, I wasn't thrilled that ETBU got to play three weeks of home games with all games being played on their Field turf. I wonder how many world series teams played more than five games all year on turf? That said, short of DIII being played in Oklahoma City again, ETBU has a fantastic facility.

The other fun part of being in the gulag that is Marshall, Texas... My daughter's team was eliminated at 12:30AM. After the goodbyes, everyone got back to their hotels at 2:30AM. Only to find that their only flight out meant leaving the hotel at 7:00AM the next morning for a 2.5 hour drive to Dallas - and a 15 hour travel day back to college. Marshall, TX is a lot of things - centrally located is not one of them.

Belhaven attempted to pitch Carruth every inning of every game. In the end, she pitched all but three innings in the Texas heat - eight games in six days - 52 innings - 740 pitches. She was arguably the best DIII pitcher I saw all year, but by Wednesday she was running on fumes. You've got to have a couple pitchers you can count on to finish a game and take an inning or two away from the starter - especially when they were up by three+ runs late against Case, Tufts, and Linfield.

Trine, CNU, Salisbury...all exiting the tourney while Linfield and Berry are each playing their game 3s. A couple more upsets and it will be interesting to see how the eight World Series teams (besides ETBU) will wind up being seeded by the NCAA.

Are you rooting for Lake Belton against Lake Creek tonight, Riley?

ETBU has a great year and will have an opportunity to host all the way through to the World Series! TLU also had a great year, but also never travelled outside the state of Texas (though I understand they had a great trip to Italy). They also have not played a Top 20 team, and have only played one regionally ranked team (Trinity). They also dropped out of the NFCA Leadoff Classic in Georgia the day before their first game - because of an unfavorable weather forecast (some teams got 5 of 6 games in, and some got all their games in). ETBU beat three Top 10 teams at that tourney. It would have been nice if TLU participated because four of their five games would have been against NCAA tournament bound/nationally ranked teams including #7 CWRU and #10 Bellhaven. Given their schedule and dropping out of a tourney nearly every other team attended, I wouldn't complain too much about their path to the Super Regional - the NCAA could have just as well sent them to the Linfield bracket... well... not really because as with the other DIII sports we know that $$$ enters into the travel equation.

Anyway... I hear your beef, but you could make an argument that TLU doesn't even deserve to be as high as they are in the NCAA Regional or NFCA National polls given their schedule. Of course, for those of us here in Texas who know about travel ball, junior colleges, and the recruiting pool which both TLU and ETBU have at their disposal, either team which makes it out of their region will be one of the World Series favorites.

Some thoughts on the NFCA Leadoff Classic...
Rain threw off the schedule, but many teams still got 5 of their 6 games in - with extra games scheduled on Thursday evening in anticipation of a lost day to Friday's rain. The other thing that threw off the schedule - negating several games between top 25 teams - was Texas Lutheran dropping out because of the "weather forecast" (though Chapman managed to travel from California and Linfield from Oregon, along with Moravian, Concordia, Illinois Wesleyan, Wartburg, Depauw, etc...).

#16 East Texas Baptist was undefeated - notably taking out #13 CWRU 4-1, #3 Berry 13-5 and #8 CNU 3-1. CNU went on to defeat defending national champion Trine - 4-3 - while CWRU beat #9 Virginia Wesleyan 4-2.

While ETBU lost their two top pitchers from last season, they've picked up two JUCO transfers whose pitching might have put them into the national championship conversation.

Lots of great games were played out in Georgia. It's a real head-scratcher as to why #15 Texas Lutheran decided to stay home at the last second - especially since they will not play a game outside of Texas the rest of the regular season - and since they do not play East Texas Baptist - they likely will not play a top 25 team the entire season.

NFCA Leadoff Classic results: https://nfca.org/diii-leadoff-classic-tournament-central

At this point in the season the computers are meaningless because they're only "learning" with each game played - as evidenced by Stockton dropping 34 positions in one week.

I watched the TCNJ/Rowan game. TCNJ was up by 20 on Rowan's home floor at one point. I also watched some of the TCNJ/Rutgers Camden game and noted that Camden is no pushover this year. They were quick, hit their share of 3's, and played the Lions tight to the end. The difference was TCNJ outscoring them by 27 from the line in a 75-68 victory. Might be a very interesting year in the NJAC.

I'm sure TCNJ is looking back at the Rowan game with a certain amount of disgust – as the Profs scored the game winner – and their only TD of the day – on a 30 yard TD toss that deflected off a defender's hands and into the receiver's arms on the last play of the game.

Quote from: jmcozenlaw on October 28, 2023, 08:30:41 PM
Phil - Great information!! I would say that DelVal was horrible from the late 1980's-early 1990's thru 2003 and have been on a roll for 2 decades. Most of the teams in the 80's (when the MAC had a zillion teams) were more than competitive. Back then the wrestling program was top 5 in the country and was THE program.

It was funny to see what you wrote about K.C. and the portal before the portal. I know some stories that would make the hair on the back of your neck stand up. He was an original and the NCAA became aware of some of his shenanigans........and admin could no longer turn a blind eye.

I do know that Rowan's ultimate goal is to be a Delaware/Villanova/Towson/Lehigh/Lafayette/Bucknell, more so athletically. Will it ever happen? Who knows. I know that TCNJ continues to sniff around the borders and makes the occasional reach out to the Centennial and has also had a conversation or two with the 'new' Landmark.

I remember when we used to call the place Trenton State Penetentiary. My how times have changed!!

I don't know the future of NJAC Football........but I think the shelf life is closing in and a couple of schools (distance, academics) want to move on before it collapses and their are no more chairs remaining at any conference table!

I've been "around" the NJAC since the mid-70's. I know what you mean regarding Mr. Keeler. At one time I thought he might be on track to take Rowan's football team in the same direction as Ramapo's ill-fated program. If nothing else, he made the chat around these parts very lively - along with a 'gentleman' from Western Connecticut and a collection of MAC folks. I do have one story for you which I can share as it's roughly 25+ years ago and involved two of the usual NJAC powers who were battling it out for the NJAC title at the end of the season. I had no skin in the game, but went to watch anyway - and sat on the home side and wound up sitting next to an assistant H.S. coach of one of the star running backs. This kid was a sure thing D1 athlete and I couldn't understand how he wound up playing at the DIII level. As the afternoon wore on, and as this kid collected 100+ rushing yards, the assistant coach finally shared with me what kept him from playing D1... "Simple", he said. "He never learned how to read". Ouch.

Ironically, K.C. Keeler is about 45 minutes up the road from me now, coaching at Sam Houston. When you have University of Texas, Texas A&M, and the University of Houston–plus high school football... and Sam Houston is sitting at 0-8 this season... that pretty much guarantees K.C. is toiling away in anonymity. We moved from NJ to The Woodlands, TX - near Houston - about 17 years ago. It's been interesting watching our local high school games being played in front of 10,000 people (same venue as the Stagg Bowl a couple years ago), with a band, high-steppers and cheerleaders accounting for as many people as spectators who might attend a Kean–William Paterson game.

I think the NJAC is destined to always be a five team conference searching for its last two teams – unless Rowan and TCNJ do something unexpected.