BB: ASC: American Southwest Conference

[Westside]

Am I reading it correctly that First Team All-American Connor Bertsch is hitting .042 (1 for 24) to start the year? One hit in 9 games is extremely surprising... for anyone, let alone an All-American. Anyone know what's going on there?

[infielddad]

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.

[TexasBB]

Big series this weekend as UTT travels south to play 3 at CTX.  This series should tell us a lot about both teams who are traditional ASC powers.
UTT has played most of its games at home this year. So how will they perform on the road against tough competition. How good is CTX this year?
They have been just average so far but winning the series will be really big for them.

[TexasBB]

UTT and CTX split the double header.

CTX dominated the 7 inning short first game 6-1.

In game 2 UTT carried a 7-2 lead going into the bottom of the 9th and held on to win 7-5

Fridays game was postponed because of rain. They will make that up on Sunday.

[Ralph Turner]

Congratulations to McMurry. They had a very young team this season.

They have competed in the NCCAA during the re-classification. To compete in the post-season regional tourney for the NCCAA, the season record must be .500.

With the 3-game sweep of Ozarks this weekend, the War Hawks finish at 20-20!

Nice job!

[Ron Boerger]

How things change .. Mr. Bertsch now batting .301 so must have been on a tear since early in the season when he was batting under a buck for CTX, who have clinched the #1 seed in the ASC tourney that starts this weekend and ends the next:

1.  CTX 27-13 / 19-5 ASC
2.  ETBU 28-12 / 18-6
3.  HSU 25-15 / 17-7
4.  UT-T 25-15 / 15-9
5.  LeTu 15-20 / 11-13
6.  SRSU 18-22 / 11-13
7.  HPU 19-19 / 9-12
8.  UT-D 21-18 / 10-14

Brackets are here.

[Westside]

How things change .. Mr. Bertsch now batting .301 so must have been on a tear since early in the season when he was batting under a buck for CTX, who have clinched the #1 seed in the ASC tourney that starts this weekend and ends the next:

Very true. Looks like he is hitting .512 in his last 13 games. Raised his average from .189 to .301 Also has He also has eight of 11 extra base hits during that stretch.

[108 Stitches]

CTX has been quietly going about their business and putting them in position to win the ASC. Seems like UTT was headed in the other direction after a good start.  Should be an interesting playoff.

[TexasBB]

After loosing 4 in a row UTT came back to win 5 of their last 6 games, including sweeping Sul Ross State in Alpine.  The team has been inconsistent, so CTX will be the favorite to win this weekend. However, if the pitching and defense hold, they could pull out the upset. The winner of this bracket should prevail in the best of 3 next week.

[Just_Some_Guy]

ASC Tournament: Day 1

Red Bracket
ETBU 8 vs. Howard Payne 6
Hardin Simmons 8 vs. Sul Ross 6

Blue Bracket
Concordia 2 vs. UTD 0
Tyler 8 vs. LeTourneau 4

All of the top seeds prevailed.

The winners of today's winner's brackets games will be in the driver's seats.

JSG

[TexasBB]

UTT beat CTX 4-3 on a 9th inning HR by Braxton Hollenshead.  UTT had built a 3-0 lead by CTX tied it two runs in the bottom of the 8th. Reese Read worked 1.2 hitless innings in relief to get the win.

[Ron Boerger]

And in the nightcap, UTD beat CTX 12-8 and will play UTT for the Blue championship tomorrow.

[Jack Parkman]

And in the nightcap, UTD beat CTX 12-8 and will play UTT for the Blue championship tomorrow.

I have a feeling that just knocked CTX out of Pool C as well.

[TexasBB]

The only team that will get a Regional bid from the ASC will be the conference tournament winner.  I felt that going into this tournament and CTX's loss just reaffirmed it. The ASC has several good but no great teams.

[TexasBB]

The ASC tournament completed round one with UTT wining the Blue Bracket and Hardin-Simmons (HSU) winning the Red Bracket.  They will face each other in a best of 3 games this coming weekend. 

UTT won after dropping the first of two today to UTD loosing the first game 9-7 and coming back to win the nightcap 7-2.  HSU also played two loosing the first game today to ETB 12-11 but winning the night cap 8-6.

Going into the conference tournament HSU was the #3 seed and UTT was the #4 seed. Therefore, I believe that the best of 3 will be played at HSU this coming weekend. The winner will get a Pool A regional berth. The looser will likely see their season over.