The NWC was down last year, but is really looking weak this season.

Quote from: 108 Stitches on March 23, 2018, 07:56:07 PM
Nice at least there was a baseball game to watch!

Coldest game I attended was at Concordia TX, in February 2012. It was in the mid-low 30's with 20ish wind. All of the non local fans were going back to their hotels to get their bed comforters, and a few enterprising cowboys went and got butane warmers from their trucks. (plus some other warming refreshments, its Texas you know)

I believe this was the year Concordia had a closer who was a UT drop down who threw in the 90's and no one from Trinity wanted to face him at the end of the game since they could not feel their hands.

I believe that was Ullmann?  Saw him, he did throw hard.

Quote from: MIFDad on February 02, 2018, 04:46:23 PM
Interesting, thanks.

14th round.  It did not work out for him very well.  Never made it past Rookie league.

http://www.milb.com/player/index.jsp?player_id=657237#/career/R/pitching/2015/ALL

Assuming it was an injury, either way it doesn't end up working out for many/most draftees.  He was exceptionally nasty in college, a buzz saw.

Didn't Brian Rauh get drafted out of Junior year in 2012?

Quote from: MIFDad on February 02, 2018, 04:23:05 PM
Definitely a kid to follow. What was his velo before?  Looks like he was used very lightly last two seasons. Injuries, or too many arms in front of him?

Do D3 pitchers ever get drafted after Jr. year?

Lots of questions, I know.

Trevor Lubking, a LHP from PLU was drafted as a Junior in 2014.  I believe he was first D3 player drafted that year.

So awesome!!!

Bearcat, I think next weekend's series is super important for Whitman.  They can't be dismissed right now as a non-contender for a seat at the NWC tournament, but a poor weekend at Salem will be a problem.  It looks like Whitman has a solid set of weekend starting pitchers.  The team may lack some of the offensive firepower and pitching velocity of the '14 team, but more overall depth, which combined with a NWC that seems down in terms of talent (no Haddeland, Scheibe, Lubking, Wilson, Pfeffer etc.-type guys or juggernaut teams) I think kind of throws it wide open. 

Quote from: Jim Dixon on March 02, 2017, 01:47:22 PM

Quote from: 108 Stitches on March 02, 2017, 01:44:31 PM

Quote from: Westside on March 01, 2017, 08:54:15 PM

Quote from: 108 Stitches on March 01, 2017, 08:30:58 PM
I think that this year, the West is much weaker than past years, but it is early so we will see how teams develop.

Maybe in top end talent, but I will say that this is the best NWC I have seen from top to bottom in the 6+ years that I have followed it.

Really? Better than the Linfield/Whitworth teams from 4-6 years ago?

The highs might not be as high, but the lows not nearly as low as before.

Certainly its early, but there looks to be much more parity in the conference as of now, versus the last 6+ seasons.  Just a couple examples, Lewis and Clark leads all conference schools in team batting average, for both overall games played, and for in-conference play, and this includes conference stats from last week's series vs. the best pitching staff, in conference, PLU.

Whitman sits currently 3rd in team ERA for games played overall, and is a very close second to PLU in team ERA for conference play - and is 1.6 ERA points better than Linfield.  They've actually allowed the fewest runs, in conference play (among teams that have played at least 5 conference games), including last Saturday's sweep of Whitworth (the Sunday game was snowed out), the pre-season coaches pick as conference champion, which included a 12K no-hitter (by a Frosh who is currently 3-0 with a sub 1.00 ERA. So yeah, it's currently wide open in the conference.

Regarding hosting, the Whitman women's team hosted both the Regional and Sectional in Walla Walla in 2014, for what it's worth.

Keep an eye on Willamette, also.  They start today in So Cal.

Just FYI, Cortland lost this morning and is currently playing the winner-take-all final game, up early, but potential upset alert......

Quote from: SoCalSoxFan on April 28, 2016, 06:01:54 PM

Quote from: BigPoppa on April 28, 2016, 05:08:48 PM
First NCAA Regional Ranking:

West Region
1    Trinity (Texas)    30-7-0 ( 0.811)    32-7-0 ( 0.821)
2    Occidental    28-5-0 ( 0.848)    28-6-0 ( 0.824)
3    Whitworth    27-10-0 ( 0.730)    27-10-0 ( 0.730)
4    Cal Lutheran    24-10-0 ( 0.706)    24-11-0 ( 0.686)
5    Concordia (Texas)    21-12-0 ( 0.636)    24-12-0 ( 0.667)
6    Texas Lutheran     24-13-0 ( 0.649)    24-13-0 ( 0.649)

Looks like CLU's head-to-head vs NWC teams came into play here.
Whitworth won game 1 this year 8-2 vs CLU; which looks to be a contributing factor for ranking #3 vs #4.

CLU defeated PLU 14-6 at the end of March.  Since then PLU has been 10-2; but not able to overcome overall 25-16 rankings to be in top 6.  If they had defeated CLU, then I wouldn't expect PLU would be ranked higher than CLU; especially since PLU was 6-1 in their other SCIAC games.

But, I suppose its irrelevant for PLU whether they are in the RR top 6, as they are in the D3 tournament via the AQ victory in NWC conference tournament.

Quote from: 108 Stitches on April 01, 2016, 01:37:13 PM
I saw both of those Chapman teams and they were solid competitive teams even if they did have a ~20/20 seasons, they were very good baseball teams and if they were playing this year would be dominating the SCIAC teams IMO. You are right Whatagame that winning starts with a good and deep pitching staff, particularly when you get to Regionals. If you have two lights out starters and a decent reliever you can win most weekend series.

When Whitworth went to the CWS they beat Trinity two in a row to get out of the Regional and Trinity, arguably a better team, ran out of pitching. They basically had Lucero and Kimesh and not much else.  When CLU came into the Regional a few years ago with the top offense in the country they were shut down in the Regional by good pitching. When you compare the Trinity teams of 4-6 years ago to now the main differences are the pitching staffs. They finally broke through the Regional last year because of that staff. (they also played great defense and hit)  You see them developing the pitchers now, vs a few years ago when they would just ride a couple of pitching horses into the Regional and get knocked out.

I remember one of the big issues with that 20-20, 2012 Chapman team was defense, particularly on the left side of the infield, if I recall.  A quick check shows that almost 30% of the total runs given up by the pitching staff were unearned.  That seems like a lot, but maybe not?

That 2012 Whitworth team was an odd bird, relative to pitching depth and making a run to Appleton.  They really only had one guy, Scheibe, who was a horse.  The rest were a bunch of strike throwers, lower velocity guys if I recall that pitched to a lot of contact.  Whhitworth's team ERA in 2012 was 4.52.  This year's Whitworth squad lacks that ace-type guy, but is probably a better overall staff stuff-wise than '12, they have a very deep lineup offensively this year.

West side, as a side note to your comments about Zimmer at Whitman - this year's Whitman team could have had easily the best offensive infield in the NWC IF Ozzy Braff hadn't transferred to D1. You'd have Zimmer at 3rd, Vela at SS (who was 2nd team all conference last season as Frosh and batting 370 with power this year) and Braff at 2nd, who was a beast in the NWC, was all conference last year at D1 Mountain West Conference and is tearing it up again this year. That scenario would have been surprising.

Chapman's offense has been solid to very strong, it seems every season since T's departure.  They have/had a number of guys that can really swing it.  What they haven't had is that stable of lights-out pitching, like draft pick guys etc. that they rolled-out for a number of years.  T's penultimate season (I believe), the weekend rotation was essentially Rauh, McGee, Osaki - pretty formidable - although amazingly, that team went 20-20 that year.