I had my numbers wrong in my last comment - Augie has 8 players returning with 100+ ABs and a .300+ Avg.

Congrats to all the CCIW D3baseball.com all-americans

1st team -
Pos Name, School                   AVG  R  H   2B3BHRRBI SB-ATT FLD%
1B Jason Acevado, Carthage .464 60 83 19 6 13 66    4-4        .993
SS Brian Kolb, Wheaton (Ill.) .527 45 77 19  2  6 52   25-25     .988

3rd team -
3B John Wagle, Augustana .419   52 80 15 5 11 60    10-14    .942

Hon. Mention -
Pos Name, School                         ERA   W-L SV    IP      H    ER    BB  SO    B/Avg
P Brent Kulavic, Illinois Wesleyan 1.82   6-1   0   59.1   45   12   12   59   .205


Looking forward to next year, Augie has a majority of their players returning for the second straight year. 
They have 8 offensive starters returning who notched 150+ ABs and a .300+ avg.  All but catcher John Vezetti and DH Aaron Hopson also started the year before last.

On the mound, they will return Mike Pagano and Matt Erickson with two years of starting experience as well as all of their bullpen. 

This is a large group of players coming back who know how to win, but also know how it feels to lose (two years in a row in both the conference tourney and the regional championship game).  Should be something to look forward to.

Nocryinginbaseball,

Your comments are just crazy to blame the pitching staff's rough end on the pitching coach.  Their current pitching coach has been there for 4 years now and each season, except for this one, saw lower ERAs and higher strikeout totals than the two seasons prior to his arrival.

2008 - 5.07 ERA; 295 Ks; 142 BBs
2007 - 4.59 ERA; 305 Ks; 178 BBs
2006 - 3.36 ERA; 266 Ks; 133 BBs
2005 - 3.77 ERA; 260 Ks; 128 BBs
-----------------------
2004 - 4.75 ERA; 251 Ks; 133 BBs
2003 - 5.43 ERA; 264 Ks; 146 BBs

Having been there through that turnover, I can attest a large amount of that overall improvement to both his knowledge of the game and his workout regimine.

This was just one of those freak things in baseball.  Brandon Engle came into his senior year 17-8 with a career ERA around 3.20 in over 150 innings, so obviously he had been given the knowledge and confidence needed to succeed (and succeed regularly).  Unfortunately, he just had a rough go around his senior year and the rest of the staff seemed to follow.

Congratulations to Augie on another impressive season.  They continue to improve year after year and once again they will return the majority of their team with now two years of NCAA tourney experience.

Their three seniors, pitchers Eric Knott and Brandon Engle and OF Marc Blakeley will be greatly missed as all three have been regulars since they came to Augie.

As far as the velocity question goes...it is a tough thing to gauge in D3 as radar guns are few and far between at games.  But I would agree that Husing is probably tops from seeing him first hand.  Augie also has a freshman, Vince Frede, who I heard (although didn't see personally) was up over 90 on occasion as a pretty succesful late-inning reliever in the second half of the season.

Tough loss for Augie.  As I thought, their bats would play the part, but the pitching just couldn't get it done.  An impressive 5-run 9th fell just short with Blakeley stranded on 3rd.

Today will be a tough match-up for the Vikings now as they have used most of their pitching.  I would expect freshman Adam Doyle to get the start.  Doyle has had a few really good outings this year mixed into a few average ones.  Depending on how their arms recover, Mike Pagano and Eric Knott might be options after their relatively short Wednesday outings.  For Linfield, however, it looks like they have a 4th regular starter which should give them a slight advantage in that regard.

The only details I have heard from the game are that Webster scored 5 in the 2nd inning.  Then it was 9-6 in the bottom of the 6th. 

Hear the ball is really carrying, but 13-6 is a pretty deep hole to crawl out of in less than 3 innings.

Webster eliminated UWSP today 9-7.

Right now, Linfield (1-1) is playing Wartburg (1-1)
Tonight, Augie (2-0) plays Webster (2-1)

If augie wins, they will need to win 1 of 2 tomorrow to advance.
If augie loses, they will play the winner of the Lin/Wart game for the chance to play Webster in a one-game championship.

After the three pitchers Webster has used already, their next best options with more than 1 start on the year have a 5.29, 6.12 and 6.48 ERA and no more than 33.1 IP on the season. 

Augie still has Engle who been average this year (5.14 ERA in 61.1 IP) but has a lot of experience over four very succesful years.  Hopefully he and the Augie offense can get after Webster early tonight and save some pitching for tomorrow, but a win tonight will put them in a great situation so they will have to use whatever it takes.

Webster 9 - UWSP 7

That leaves Webster (2-1) vs. Augie (2-0) tonight at 7:00.

Just a little more on the augie game now that the box score is out...

Soph Matt Erickson threw 8 innings giving up 1 ER.  Erickson started the year in the rotation but did not pitch much in-conference all season.  He picked the right time to have a huge game.

UWSP scored 1 in the top of the 1st.
Augie came back with single runs in the 6th, 7th, and 8th to go up 3-1.
UWSP scored 2 in the top of the 9th to tie it...all with two outs.
Augie led off the 9th with a walk and then it looks like Blakeley scored him from 1st with two outs.

Ouch, hopefully Carthage can jump back.

Augie beat UW-Stevens Point 4-3.

They play at 7:00 on friday vs. the winner of the UWSP/Webster game and will be playing on Saturday win or lose.

that sets this up for the rest of the weekend

Friday:

12:00 - Webster (1-1) vs. UWSP (1-1)
3:30 - Linfield (1-1) vs. Wartburg (1-1)
7:00 - Winner of Web/UWSP (2-1) vs. Augie (2-0)

and saturday will look like this

If Augie Wins on Friday:

12:00 - Augie vs. winner of Lin/Wart
3:30 - If neccesary

If Augie Loses on Friday:

12:00 - Augie vs. winner of Lin/Wart
3:30 - Winner of 12:00 game vs. Winner of Web/UWSP game

Augie 4- Stevens Point 3

No matter how good or bad he may be, at least Linfield can follow all of their games! 

Knarocky-

When there is baseball to keep track of, I become an awfully good multi-tasker.  

Since you are still in school, and all you have is free time on your hands, why dont you make the short little drive out to Rock Island and keep us updated!

I agree with everyone else, I really thought Augie would come through with some sort of a feed (if nothing more than score updates through D3baseball.com). 

They have the capabilities to do it on-site and should have even resorted to "renting" IWU's system if they had no other options.

It is going to be a long night tonight if I have to wait until the game is over around 10:30 to get the first update!

I agree with Knarocky22.  Augie has shown no pitching strength at all this year, and as we saw in the first two games against IWU, the offense just can't win every game, no matter how capable they may be.  I really see no hope for Augie to beat both Carthage and IWU on the same weekend to win the conference tourney, so they need to finish strong and take 2 of 3 from Carthage to keep any at-large hopes alive.

Update from IWU website:  Augie 5 - IWU 0, bottom 5th