BB: ASC: American Southwest Conference

[Just_Some_Guy]

Hardin Simmons 8 - College of Southwest 1

WP: Kyle Barton
Ryan Stepp (who evidently didn't quit) was 2-3 with 5 RBIs


Hardin Simmons 13- Oklahoma Baptist 5

WP James Sweatman
Stepp and Wayne Pimpton were both 3-5.

The two freshman from Tomball seem to have started off solid. Other freshman also got the opportunity to start at least one of the games.

JSG

[Just_Some_Guy]

Austin College and Texas Lutheran split a DH header today.

TLU tooked the first game 7-2 and then Austin College won the next game 10-0.

Box One
Box Two

I don't THINK TLU was ever shut out last year.

TLU will have to have better productivity from spots 6-9 in the order (2-20 w/ Freshman LF Kelly Shannon have both the hits).

JSG

JSG

[Just_Some_Guy]

UT Tyler 19 - Hendrix 3

WP Ryan Cambpell
LP Jordan Suydam

Tyler banged out 21 hits.

UT Tyler 21 - Hendrix 6

WP Brett Holland
LP Dave Keine

Tyler had 16 hits.

JSG

[Ralph Turner]

McMurry splits the DH at Chapman.

McMurry Pre-season All-American "first baseman" Brent Voorhees pitched 6 2/3  innings to beat Matt Luzar and Kurt Yacko 5-2 in the opener.  Chapman scored in the bottom of the 9th to edge McMurry 6-5. Yacko got his second win of the series and the season in relief.

McMurry and Chapman played 27 innings and score 23 runs each, but Chapman got the series, 2 games to one.   

Box scores

[Just_Some_Guy]

McMurry splits the DH at Chapman.

McMurry Pre-season All-American "first baseman" Brent Voorhees pitched 6 2/3  innings beat Matt Luzar and Kurt Yacko 5-2 in the opener.  Chapman scored in the bottom of the 9th to edge McMurry 6-5. Yacko got his second win of the series and the season in relief.

McMurry and Chapman played 27 innings and score 23 runs each, but Chapman got the series, 2 games to one.   

Box scores

Yacko is arguably the best all-around player in division III baseball. There's no disputing the fact that he's in the mix.

It will be interesting to see how Kitchens recovers from this 'tweak.' They need him because I'm not sure they can survive consistently with Sigman and Clear both in the mix.

I'd like to think getting Yurchick back will help McMurry a lot. Ideally, I'd like to see that line up be Yurchick, Franco, David, Vorhees at the top. Yurchick is a better hitter than Lance Jones and you maximize Franco's skill set in the two slot. With David, Vorhees protecting him, teams have to throw to him and he's going to swing out of his shoes anyway so might as well have him be where he's going to see strikes.

JUCO transfer Toombs pitched well and when you get Curry back and in the mix you won't necessarily have to use Vorhees as a starter, and if he can continue to throw well without it affecting his stick adding him to the backend of the pen with Martin is going to help out alot.

14 Errors didn't help McMurry either...

JSG

[BigPoppa]

Chapman is giving up way too many run to be a serious contender at this point and they are leaning too much on Yacko out of the bullpen to expect him to keep it up all season. I believe he has appeared in 5 of 6 games this season while playing the infield as well. That is a lot of wear and tear on a young arm.

Kudos to McMurry for stepping up to the plate this weekend and punching Chapman square in the mouth.

[Ralph Turner]

Chapman is giving up way too many run to be a serious contender at this point and they are leaning too much on Yacko out of the bullpen to expect him to keep it up all season. I believe he has appeared in 5 of 6 games this season while playing the infield as well. That is a lot of wear and tear on a young arm.

Kudos to McMurry for stepping up to the plate this weekend and punching Chapman square in the mouth.

Thanks for the kind words.  I believe that McMurry needs to take two of three from GFU this weekend.

I would be happy with a 3-3 start versus Chapman and GFU.

Coach Driggers has one of the toughest schedules in all of D-III. McMurry plays 2007 NCAA Playoff teams, #2 Chapman (3), (Receiving votes) GFU (3), Austin College (3), #17 Texas Lutheran (3), (Receiving votes) UT-Dallas (1) and #10 Marietta (1).  They also play #16 UT-Tyler (1) and (receiving votes) HSU (3).

That is 18 of the 40 games.  The other non-conference foes include Southwestern home-and-away and at Trinity.

[Just_Some_Guy]

TLU 15 def. Austin College 7

The first three hitters, CF Kyle Harvey, 2B Andrew Femath and RF Ryan Nokelby went 8-13 with 9 RBIs in the final game.

For the series the Bulldogs were led by the same three: Femath (8-11), Harvey (4-9, 5 RBIs, 3 SBs), and Nokelby (4-11, 6 RBIs).

One thing I really liked was that a lot of Bulldogs got the opportunity to contribute, both on the field and on the bump.

The guys platooning in LF also hit pretty well with FR Kelly Shannon (3-5) and SO Brandon Opheim (2-6) adding to the number of upperclassmen the young Bulldogs will rely on this year.

I think TLU has to be okay with taking 2 out of 3 from the '07 SCAC champs.
You never want to get run-ruled, but they have a young team that's going
to go through some growing pains early and taking 2 out of 3 from solid
teams will usually get you to the playoffs.

Of note for Austin College it was good to see Bobby Schleizer back in the mix (particularly offensively), but I was surprised to see him throwing that last game and Coach Iwasaki for whatever reason not pitching Chermak who is probably his best pitcher coming back from last year's squad.











JSG

[Mack09]

JSG,

Did you make it out to the Austin College vs. Texas Lutheran games?  I have only read box scores.  I was wondering how the teams looked defensively.  I noticed Texas Lutheran made five errors which is not too bad this early in the season.  I know Austin College does not have the greatest playing surface.  I was just wondering how they looked (both teams) defensively because it is hard to tell from a box score.

Also i noticed McMurry made a ton of errors in the Chapman series.  Did anyone get to see that series? 

[BigPoppa]

Also i noticed McMurry made a ton of errors in the Chapman series.  Did anyone get to see that series? 

I saw a little of the DH on Saturday. Chapman's bullpen is going to be in trouble if their starters cannot get deep in games. Yacko will never hold up if he has to throw 2-3 innings every game to close the door. McMurry looked solid, but their defense was very shaky, which can be expected early in the season. If they can polish it up a bit, they will be a solid team looking for a post-season berth.

[Just_Some_Guy]

JSG,

Did you make it out to the Austin College vs. Texas Lutheran games?  I have only read box scores.  I was wondering how the teams looked defensively.  I noticed Texas Lutheran made five errors which is not too bad this early in the season.  I know Austin College does not have the greatest playing surface.  I was just wondering how they looked (both teams) defensively because it is hard to tell from a box score.

Also i noticed McMurry made a ton of errors in the Chapman series.  Did anyone get to see that series? 

I did not actually get to catch any of the games. In retrospect I don't think 5 errors is that bad (particularly early), but for a team that has won a lot of games in the past based on pitching and defense I still think there's some concern on the infield defense for the Bulldogs.

In terms of McMurry - I know David made a couple of errors. He really makes some phenomenal plays over there, but everytime I've watched him he's seemed relatively prone to mistakes as well.

JSG

[Mack09]

TLU has definitely been strong defensively the past years.  I wonder if the mistakes were young mistakes or possible scoreing goofs.  Either way the Bulldogs have their hands full this weekend with four games out in Cali.  It shoould be real interesting to see how this young team travels throughout the year.  They also have a trip to Lousiana for La. College in a coulple of weeks.  I could see them being really up and down on those road trips as they were this weekend.  On the flip side they always seem to be a strong team down the finish.

There is supposed to be some awful weather this weekend.  I hope it doesn't effect the George Fox and McMurry match up.  That one should be fun to watch.

[wetsu]

Does anyone have an opinion on Coach Gardner or Coach Meyer they wish to share.  I need a reason to think good thoughts about their program.  So far, all I have heard is negative.  Through experience, I agree.  Not worth much as people the way they treat their players.

[Just Bill]

1. There's a whole lot of Concordia Universities and Concordia Colleges.  You're going to have to me more specific.

2. The Terms of Service for this message board don't permit a thread to be started about a single team.  Take your question to "Concordia's" conference page and ask it there.

[wetsu]

I was refering to Concordia, Austin, TX.