BB: NCAC: North Coast Athletic Conference

[Dr. Acula]

Play Ball ALL!!!!  It's Spring Time in OHIO and the Temps are achieving a balmby 43 degrees....Hey, LET'S PLAY TWO!!!!!!

I believe that the NCAC Tournament IS changing it's format for this season and it's REALLY going to be interesting to see the shake-up in the league's Regular Season for next year.  I understand that teams will be playing all other 8 members and will do it playing a DH on Sat versus one team and another DH on Sun versus a different team.  I bet travel and schedule make up will be a VERY interesting discussion when the time comes....

Who does the NCAC have running the show?  How hard is it to look at the OAC as a model to go by next year?  Instead, it seems like the NCAC has to make things as difficult as possible?!   

It doesn't seem like it should be that hard does it, ScotsFan?  The OAC gets in DH against every team in the conference.  They play every Saturday and then Tue or Wed conference DH to get them all in.  I would think the NCAC would do something similar.  I sure hope they don't only play conference DH on Saturdays because gawd forbid some has a lights out 1-2 because they'll throw every conference game!

[ScotsFan]

Wooster has officially kicked off their season today down at LaGrange.  

Justin McDowell got the start for Wooster and got off ot an uncharacteristically bad start as he allowed 3 runs in the bottom of the first.  However, Wooster didn't appear to forget their bats has they have scored 9 runs through 3 innings!    McDowell has also appeared to have settled into the game as he has not allowed a run since the 1st.

LaGrange has Live Stats available for this game if anyone is interested.

Apparently, McDowell has settled in nicely as he has only allowed on hit since the 1st inning for LaGrange!  It's now 14-3 in the top of the 5th!

[ScotsFan]

And Wooster has a successful debut to the 2010 season!  Final from LaGrange:

Wooster - 18
LaGrange - 5

After a shaky 1st inning, McDowell was pullable to go 5 innings and only allowed one hit after the 1st inning!

The bullpen did pretty good allowing 2 runs over the last 2 innings, but only one was earned.

Woo's offense seems to be off and running as they pounded out 21 hits en route to their 18 runs.  Matthew Johnson did what your leadoff man is supposed to do by getting on base all 4 plate appearances with 3 hits.  Included in those 3 hits were 2 triples!  And he scored 4 runs to boot!

The only downer of the game was that Wooster committed 4 errors.  But, I'm willing to chalk that up to being the first game of the season.  I'd imagine that this was the first live action this team has seen outside of a gym in quite some time so it's pretty understandable to see some rust in the gloves for the first few games.

Now that Wooster got a little BP under their belts, next up is a bit stiffer competition as they face #9 Carthage tomorrow at 6 pm.  I'm guessing Matt Barnes should get the start for Wooster tomorrow?

[countyroad]

ScotsFan,

Errors was the stat that caught my eye two.  I saw two of the 4 were made by backup 3rd baseman Phil Pie.

Nice start though.

[Dr. Acula]

Very impressive start for the Scots.  Not a bad debut from Van Horn either (I think he was 3 for 5).  Big test coming up.

[ScotsFan]

Very impressive start for the Scots.  Not a bad debut from Van Horn either (I think he was 3 for 5).  Big test coming up.

He also threw a scoreless inning of relief. 

I read in a season preview article in the Wooster paper last week that Van Horn's coach at Princeton said he was the most talented player he had ever recruited at Princeton.  Sounds like he could be quite the nice find for Pettorini!

[Dr. Acula]

Why did he leave Princeton? 

p.s. Kenyon lost 5-0 to Berg this morning.  I haven't seen anything on the Witt/Albion game yet (it was also this morning). 

[ScotsFan]

Why did he leave Princeton? 

Haven't heard why he left.  It just said in that preview article that his father is a COW alum so his being a COW legacy may have something to do with him ending up in Wooster?  I don't know for sure though.

[ScotsFan]

Anyone have a clue as to when the Wooster/Carthage game will start?  Wooster's website says it is a 6 pm start time.  But when I looked at Carthage's website to see if they had live stats available, they have the start time at 2 pm? 

[Dr. Acula]

The Snowbird Classic site says it starts at 2pm also.  Take that for what you will.

[Dr. Acula]

Tough luck for OWU....take a 6-5 lead over Musky in the top of the 9th, but a slow grounder with the bases loaded plates the tying run and a wild pitch scores the winning run for the Fish in the bottom half.

[ScotsFan]

Thanks drac!

[Dr. Acula]

Anyone figure out if the game actually started at 2pm?  I haven't been able to get the live stats to work so I'm hoping it's because the game hasn't started yet.

[HeyScots]

The wooster/carthage game was played at 2 pm and has just gone final.

Wooster 14
Carthage 10

[countyroad]

Thanks for the score HeyScots. 

I'm interested to see what the box score tells us.