While I think Coach Scannell and Coach Bunch will love the AB's by all 9  hitters, I would guess Coach Scannell will rave about the job done by Chris Tate. If I remember right, he came in with the bases loaded in the 1st.  After 6 full, he gave up 2 hits and no runs.
Holding PLU with nada when TU was down 4-1 was huge...so far.
TU still has really good arms to finish. Tate did his job and did it so well.

Quote from: 108 Stitches on May 20, 2016, 05:10:30 PM
Infieldad. When the team went up to OU two years ago the best position player on the field (as acknowledged by both coaches) was Waters who normally hits in the 9 hole. (with a 0.419BA) As a tournament moves along they will brutalize pitchers. Great pitchers can hold them to 3 runs, good ones to 5 and everyone else, well your watching what can happen.  1-9 this is the best hitting Trinity team ever.

Waters is a great story, especially how he came back this year. Coach Scannell told us about it when we were there in February. 108, I think you are absolutely right about 1-9, with one addition: This is probably the best hitting team 1-15. Its just that only 9 get to play.

Waters homers to open the 7th.  14-1 now.
These are remarkable numbers for the Trinity line up:

8 - 14 ( .571 )    with two outs
14 - 26 ( .538 ) with runners on    
11 - 21 ( .524 ) with runners in scoring position

The Trinity lineup is 9  tough outs for any opposing pitcher. At least 4 and possibly 6 of those guys are quality D1 hitters and the rest through #9 in the order are darn good. In the modern vernacular, I think it can safely be said they have "length" in their line up.
TU is now up 12-1 in the top of the 6th.

Jack, I am certainly not predicting anything, but the NCAA could put Trinity, CTX and TLU on one plane out of SAT or Austin.

Don't know anything about him but an educated guess would be injury or putting too much pressure on himself.
From experience, the latter can be just as tough as the former other than being time limited, usually.  While not quite those numbers, I am pretty close to a former Texas player who scuffled through the first 5-6 games of the season, went on a 40 plus game hitting streak and was hitting over .500 by mid-season.  An injury usually won't allow that type of breakout, though.

Quote from: Jack Parkman on March 01, 2016, 04:30:24 PM

Quote from: 108 Stitches on March 01, 2016, 09:11:46 AM
I have not dug too deep into the West but on the surface it seems little weaker than in previous years. PLU and Linfield dropping down, Chapman is in the dungeon, Tyler seems to be holding their own. CTX looks like a so-so team. TLU laid an egg over the weekend, CLU so-so. Whtiworth made a move up. Trinity is the only team winning games they should that I can see. I will dig into it later in the week, but on the surface the West looks like not very many potentially dominant teams. Redlands?

#   School (1st votes)   Rec   Pts   Prev.
1   Cortland (25)   6-0   625   1
2   UW-La Crosse   0-0   554   2
3   Emory   9-2   553   3
4   Trinity (Texas)   9-2   531   7
5   Birmingham-Southern   8-2   477   8
6   Frostburg State   5-1   457   10
7   Salisbury   2-2   406   4
8   UW-Whitewater   0-0   393   9
9   Shenandoah   5-1   319   16
10   UW-Stevens Point   0-0   306   13
11   Kean   3-3   294   5
12   Southern Maine   0-0   276   15
13   Webster   4-3   271   6
14   Whitworth   11-0   252   -
15   Ramapo   2-0   227   18
16   Randolph-Macon   9-0   225   rv
17   Texas-Tyler   9-3   201   22
18   Mary Washington   8-0   191   rv
19   Marietta   3-1   189   24
20   Linfield   9-5   185   14
21   Berry   12-1   151   -
22   Wartburg   0-0   137   20
23   Wooster   0-0   127   21
24   Christopher Newport   8-0   125   -
25   Heidelberg   1-2   78   12

Dropped out: 11. Rhodes, 17. Pacific Lutheran, 19. Baldwin Wallace, 23. Methodist, 25. Alvernia

Concordia Chicago 72, Brockport 63, St. Thomas (Minn.) 56, Misericordia 40 , La Roche 38, Ohio Northern 34, Carthage 26, Baldwin Wallace 25, Methodist 24, Rhodes 21, Keystone 17, Alvernia 12, Bridgewater (Va.) 12, Coe 12, Buena Vista 11, Thomas More 11, MIT 11, Adrian 9, Centenary (La.) 8, Pacific Lutheran 8, Johns Hopkins 8, Ohio Wesleyan 6, Maryville (Tenn.) 5, Millsaps 5, St. Scholastica 5, Mt. St. Joseph 5, La Verne 4, Cal Lutheran 3, Huntingdon 2, Rutgers-Camden, Stevens 2, Texas Lutheran 2, Endicott 2, Brandeis 1, Tufts 1.

I would agree with all of that.  It also makes me wonder if the West is getting stronger and teams are beating up on each other, or maybe there are only a handful of really good teams.  I saw UT Dallas play and thought they were pretty good but Trinity took care of them so maybe that says it all.

I would say the biggest disappointment so far is PLU.  There were/are a lot of high expectations for them and they are failing to live up to them. 

La Verne split 4 games with Linfield and PLU and have won 6 games against the 2 worst SCIAC teams.  They have a lot to prove in the next few weeks.

Redlands has been pretty good but I don't know if they have the pitching depth to make a deep run.  I am curious to see if Minjarez gets used too much and slows down.  He is without a doubt one of the top pitchers in the SCIAC.

Cal Lu had had a few really bad outings on the mound and that needs to be fixed if they plan on getting to a regional

Overall, I think Trinity is probably the 2nd best team in the country (behind Cortland).

Trinity pounded Concordia tonight, 11-1. Troy Nelson, who I saw pitch against UT-Dallas and thought he was goooooood (in relief for one inning) went 6 1/3 and struck out 9.  Concordia made 6 errors in the box score so that makes things muddied but TU also had 13 hits and they went the entire length of the line up.  Nelson has huge upside on the mound, and apparently is equally comfortable starting and closing, so far. It is a long season but TU can be really good if they get really hungry and get younger guys to push the seniors really hard and play every game like the trip to Appleton depends on it.

Quote from: Bmo on February 21, 2016, 02:11:00 PM
Got to watch a little of the live stream from yesterday's 2nd TU-UTD game.  If you're so inclined, check out the play by the Trinity shortstop at about the 33:30 mark from that game.  You don't see that very often at this level..

Bmo, the Trinity shortstop, Connor Moore is good, really good.  The Dallas hitter clearly was thinking hit getting out of the box and did not realize Moore backhanded the ball deep in the hole.  As a result, the runner rounded 1B rather than running through the bag and was stunned when he realized what happened.
The TU 3B is also really good and made huge double play driving to his right over the bag to snag a well hit ball with runners on 1st and 2nd.
While I have not seen the overall stats, it would not surprise me if UT Dallas did not have far more baserunners.  They left a ton on base and especially at 2B and 3B.
Nelson, who closed the 2nd game on Saturday was the real thing.  I would doubt there are many better in D3 in terms of what he showed for 1 inning with 3Ks.
He was 88-91, everything down, ahead in each count and used a very hard breaking ball with equally good command.
Trinity has arms but their starters cannot continue to give up so many "free" baserunners, to pitch from the stretch and with so many 3-2 counts.
Good teams will hurt them, eventually and the offense won't always be able to score enough runs.
Clearly the coaching staff wants them to pitch to contact. With the quality and speed of their defense that message seems like the right one.
This can be a really good team on the mound, in the field, with the bats and with speed and depth, but they are not one  yet.  I still think they need to appreciate every opponent sees them as the team to beat and, mentally, Trinity might not see each opponent quite the same way.

Quote from: Jack Parkman on February 16, 2016, 11:01:25 AM

Quote from: 108 Stitches on February 15, 2016, 09:46:20 PM
Interesting opening week for SCAC teams. It is still way early, but a couple of observations.

Centenary seems like they are the real deal this year again. They took Trinity to the final game of the SCAC Championships and it looks like they have not missed a beat. They started earlier than some of the other teams and are 6-1, loosing only to No 7 BS. They should get some votes in the the top 25 ballots.

TLU beat No. 7 BS, so even with only three games played they have shown they can play with the best.

Not sure what to make of SWestern at 1-6, but they traveled to the South Region and played some quality teams.

Trinity went 2 of 3 loosing a close game to No 7 BS. They will overpower a lot of teams offensively, but their long term fate rests in the hands of how their pitching staff develops during the year. They are a regional team, but not sure about pitching getting them through to the CWS again this year.

Dallas looks bad as does Austin.

Weekend predictions (don't have time to look at mid week games)

Texas Dallas @ Trinity TU takes 2 of 3
Austin @ SW NM     Who knows, who cares
HSU @ TLU      TLU takes 2 of 3
UofD @ LeT        Splits 1 - 1
Cent @ SWestern   Early match up to see what both teams are made of SW is tough at home but Cent takes 2 of 3.

Good to be talking baseball again.

I saw UTD play 2 games this past weekend and this series will be pretty interesting.  UTD has a very fast lineup and they are very patient at the dish and get the pitch they want and they punish it.  I know Trinity has a very good #1 but I don't know much about their pitching after that.  I think this should be a pretty good series.

The Trinity-UT Dallas game was played at very high intensity level. Clearly, Trinity is the big target this year and it isn't completely clear if they have adjusted to that mindset. With that said, they can be really good, offensively.  As good as UT Dallas is, the ball has a very different sound coming off the TU bats, for the most part. They are powerful, athletic and with good speed 1-9 in the line up
The HR was one of the longest anyone could remember clearing the oaks beyond the left field fence.
This team has a ways to go and cannot be giving up free base runners at the clip the pitching is doing so far. Tate was really good though and Gray was darn tough in keeping runners he put on going station to station, only.
Had a fun night being back for the first time in many years with our son.  Threw out the first ball with him.
Let's just say I kept it "down" in the zone!

Interesting  new development on the Wash U AD.....he appears to have  left:

"Sources have confirmed several media reports -- first reported by Loren Tate of The News-Gazette -- that the university will announce Washington University (St. Louis) athletics director Josh Whitman as the program's 19th director of athletics in the next few days.

Whitman, 37, is a former Illinois football player who also graduated from the UI College of Law. Whitman has served as Wash U's AD for about two years."

It will be interesting to see what this might mean for the future of the baseball program at Claremont Mudd Scripps:

Cornell Head Coach Walkenbach has resigned and  has been named HC at Claremont Mudd Scripps.

Washington State opened up today.  Just a coincidence?

Because of how well Trinity played in its 1st game of its  1st Regional, after a nearly 30 day layoff, I pretty much rejected the time from the end of the SCAC tournament to the Regional as any reason for not making it to Appleton.  However, when we realize this team had 10 days from the SCAC tournament until the 1st day of the Regional, pretty much like every other team in the Regional and  unlike all the previous years, others may have been better and more objective than I have been about the time from ending the SCAC until the 1st day of the Regional as a very real factor in why Trinity could not break through before 2015.

Quote from: BamColt on May 17, 2015, 11:11:19 AM
Couldnt be happier for Trinity, well deserved. Especially the pitching coach Smith. His pitching coach would be proud right now.

BamColt, I wish I could applaud this thought multiple times. Thank you for remembering Coach Meccage and all he did for Dave and so many members of those teams.  Got to think he is already waiting in Appleton spending the next few days with #12, both with very proud smiles.

Jack, it has been a long time coming.  For those of us with son's who could not get passed that last game, and there are many, this is a wonderful day to celebrate before a new challenge begins tomorrow. While I personally don't think getting to Appleton was needed to justify  just how good this program has been for many, many years, I know many of those who post here do, and I have grown to respect those views and perspectives.
Our son's first college game was at Emory so it is a bit of irony for me that Trinity will start the CWS with Emory.  I have a pretty good feeling the Coaches will make sure the team knows today was not an end but the beginning.