I see the NFCA has recognized Central's Kiley Lythberg as player of the week for March 15-22. Congrats to her for her fine performance for the week which includes a 4-0 record with a .84 ERA while giving up just 3 runs and 12 hits with 23 strikeouts in 25 innings.

Another pitcher who had a pretty good week is Messiah junior Jessica Rhoads. So far this year she is 6-0 with an ERA of 0.00 having given up 1 hit and 0 runs so far in 29.2 innings with 57 strikeouts including a complete game no-hitter against NFCA #13 Wisconsin-Whitewater and a perfect game against Albright. Past history from the last 2 years would indicate that there is no reason to expect the NFCA will give her the recognition she deserves so I will post updates from time to time to keep you informed.

Are you upset because John Carroll isn't going or because you were wrong?
Let me pass along some advice that was given to me when I questioned why Jessica rhoads wasn't selected to the NFCA All America team last year despite being the most dominant pitcher in D3.
Get over it.

I see the NCAA has released their first D-III regional rankings. I find it puzzling that defending national champion Messiah College is ranked only no. 6 in the East Region especially since they lost no starters to graduation and again this year they have probably the most dominating pitcher in the nation in sophomore Jessica Rhoads.

I can understand how they possibly flew under the radar last year as the only unranked team in the nation to qualify for the national championship tournament. But you can't make that case this year to explain the lack of respect given to this team. So I am left to hope that this will only serve to act as additional motivation to propel them toward defense of their national championship.

#7 Messiah College sweeps Albright 2-0 and 6-0. Jessica Rhoads pitched a 8 inning perfect game in the opener with 14 strikeouts and batted in the winning run in the top of the 8th and then followed that with a 3 hit shutout and 12 strikeouts in the second game to raise her record to 20-1 with a .37 ERA.

It will be interesting to see if the NFCA takes notice to her performance this week.

Congrats to Eastern Connecticut sophomore Molly Rathbun and Wisconsin-Oshkosh senior Whitney Tornow who were named the Louisville Slugger/NFCA Division III Co-Players of the Week for the week ending April 11.

Looks like Messiah College sophomore pitcher Jessica Rhoads quietly had a nice week as well going 5-0 with a .23 ERA giving up one earned run in 30 innings. It appears that Rhoads is having another great season following her amazing freshman year when she led Messiah to the Division III National Championship as well as being ranked first or second in just about every pitching statistic. If she continues putting up those kind of numbers the rest of the year it will be difficult for the Division III All-American Committee to snub her again this year.

Does anyone have any information on what criteria is used when selecting players for the NFCA Division III All American team? I noticed that Jessica Rhoads, from Messiah College was not selected although if you look at the statistics, she was arguably the top pitcher in Division III in 2009. Second in ERA, first in strikeouts per seven innings, first in hits allowed per seven innings, second in victories and first in winning percentage at .966 (28-1 record).
Now looking at the first, second and third teams as selected, there are a total of 11 pitchers selected including at-large selections. Is it possible that the selection committee believes there were 11 pitchers more deserving of all-america honors in 2009 than Jessica Rhoads? Looking at the statistics, this is very difficult to justify. The only possible explanation I can come up with is that the committee felt that the amazing statistics put up by Ms. Rhoads were recorded against inferior competition compared to those of the 11 pitchers selected to the team. Based on her performance in the national championship tournament against the top teams in the nation, even this argument has no basis. If someone has an explanation on how this could happen, please respond  so that I can understand.