BB: NCAC: North Coast Athletic Conference

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Denison came back from deficits in the 9th and 10th to beat Wooster, 5-4 in 10 innings. Andrew Touhy drew a bases loaded walk to drive in the winning run.

Looks like coach Deegan is starting to build a winning spirit in Granville already.

[Bishopleftiesdad]

Yup they should be dangerous this year. Had a rough start in Florida but they quickly turned it around.

They also had one of the smaller rosters at the Snow Bird. Looks like they are going to be tough.

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Yup they should be dangerous this year. Had a rough start in Florida but they quickly turned it around.

They also had one of the smaller rosters at the Snow Bird. Looks like they are going to be tough.

They need to hit and field much better. It will be interesting to see if that comes around against the northern schedule.

[Bishopleftiesdad]

OWU Could have had a better trip to Florida. They come out of the trip 4-3. Three of those wins are NOT against what I would call quality opponents, Mount St. Joseph's (2), and  Wheaton (ill).

Starting pitching.
Looks like Cooper will be solid again and is most likely the number 1.
Sega struggled in his first game. He had not pitched in a meaningful game since Aug 2 for the Chillicothe Paints. He took the Fall off to intern in New York for his Major.
Hock may have looked like the best of the three. He gave a very solid 80 pitch performance against Marietta. And again in relief in Cooper's start against St. Joseph's. He struggled some in relief last year, but has seemed to have righted the ship.

The fourth pitcher could be Paul Priddy, Freshman Nick Munger who in 10 innings pitched has not given up an earned run., or Blake Adkins.

Relief pitching.
This really needs to improve. Paul Priddy did fine in relief of Cooper at BW, but could end up in the rotation. The bull pen gave up two huge innings one to Marrietta, after a very nice outing by Hock, and in the game against Mountclair state. The game was close until the 8th when relief gave up 6 runs.

As is usually the case errors played a part in some of these runs.

Hitting.
Looks like the Freshman can hit. They hit very well in their first appearances. Hutchinson is hitting .429 and is a good addition to the infield. Jack Clark does not hit for power but is always on base, either getting walked or hitting a single. He clearly goes to the plate with a plan. Caputo is hitting well with only the first 5 games in the books he is hitting .450. Steve Moore is at .375.

I would like to see the upper classmen go to the plate with more of a plan. It seems they are putting a lot of pressure on themselves and need to have some fun. In the last games, however,  the upper class-men started to hit. Toland drilled some down the third base line and hit some deep fly balls and looks like he is getting honed in.  Ben Steele has been a very pleasant surprise. After spending the fall playing football for the 9-1 bishops he is hitting at a .333 clip as the DH. Hock has hit very well especially since he has not seen many at bats since high school as he has been mostly a pitcher only. The stats are not up to date yet but he hit very well in the DH against MT. St. Joes. As he gets used to standing at the plate instead of the mound I think this will improve..

Fielding
It is early in the season but if this team does not get the errors fixed it could be a long season. Out of the seven games down south I do not think there was a game with less than 2 errors. Sometimes in critical situations. 
Bott has made some outstanding plays at short and it looks like he will not see a fall off from losing Gaydos. Hutchinson had been good at second. Moving Toland from Catcher to first has gone smoothly as well. He still has some learning to do but there has been several throws in the dirt to first that he has been very good at picking, especially for this early in the season. Hock has been good

At catcher and there there is a lot of flexibility Looks like Aaron Caputo has the position locked up and he handles the pitchers well. When Hock pitches or needs a day off for his arm Caputo can come in and handle third well. When Caputo is at third it will probably be either Finn or Miller. Miller saw more time during the spring behind the plate and handled the pitchers and the rest of the team well. He is very vocal and has a good presence back there.

In the outfield it looks like we will be the most experienced part of the squad. There may have been one OF error the whole week. Looks like Lawson will be in left with Vollenweider in center and Buckey in right.

[Bishopleftiesdad]

Yup they should be dangerous this year. Had a rough start in Florida but they quickly turned it around.

They also had one of the smaller rosters at the Snow Bird. Looks like they are going to be tough.

They need to hit and field much better. It will be interesting to see if that comes around against the northern schedule.

I think they will be up and down this year. but I think they will be in the cross over games at least as the fourth seed. And in a short 1 game series anything is possible.

There win against Wheaton was nice but there were a lot of errors by Wheaton in that game. Not sure Wheaton took them seriously and may have been looking ahead to another game.

[Bishopleftiesdad]

Wabash better get off to a hot start in the NCAC. They play Witt and Depauw at home to start NCAC play then finish the season away at Denison and OWU. They do not have a home game scheduled after 04/17.

[Bishopleftiesdad]

Depauw has not got off to the hot start they had last year. Currently they are 2-3 with 2 losses to Manchester (in the top 25) and a split with Concordia Chicago.

They now start there spring trip down south in the RussMatt invitational.
While in Winter Haven they will play
Southern Maine DH
St. Olaf DH
Wisc Stephens point
St. Thomas.

None of these are Mid East region teams so they will not count towards their SOS for a pool C bid. With 70% in region games required next year, and all games counting towards SOS next year, I am interested to see how Depauw schedules. Do they still go to the Russ Matt?

[Bishopleftiesdad]

Witt is 6-1.

Wins
St. Vincent (3-6)
WPI (5-9) X2
Union (3-3) x2
Aurora (6-3)

Losses
East Mennonite (11-10)

[Bishopleftiesdad]

Kenyon is off to a hot start again this year 11-3. They do not have a signature win yet though.

Wins
Anna Maria College (2-7)
Widener University (5-6) x2
Wilmington College (3-10)
Mitchell College (10-18)
Salve Regina University (7-3) x2
Olivet College (5-3)
Univ. of Pittsburgh-Bradford (4-6) x2
Westminster College (MO) (3-3)


Losses
Anna Maria College
Mitchell College
Westminster College (MO)

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Kenyon is off to a hot start again this year 11-3. They do not have a signature win yet though.

Wins
Anna Maria College (2-7)
Widener University (5-6) x2
Wilmington College (3-10)
Mitchell College (10-18)
Salve Regina University (7-3) x2
Olivet College (5-3)
Univ. of Pittsburgh-Bradford (4-6) x2
Westminster College (MO) (3-3)


Losses
Anna Maria College
Mitchell College
Westminster College (MO)

They play 6 games against Marietta and Wooster next week. I suspect we'll know a lot more about them then.

No idea why they agreed to stack those as such, but they did. Will be interesting to see how creative they get with pitching in the Marietta games.

[Bishopleftiesdad]

Looks like Hiram is off to a good start for them, they are 5-6.

Wins
Ohio Northern (6-4)
Eastern (Mass.) Nazarene (2-6) x2
Finlandia (Mich.) (1-7) x2

Losses
Ohio Northern
Dominican (Ill.) (3-8)
Newbury (3-8) x2
Olivet (5-3)
Thiel (5-4)

[Bishopleftiesdad]

Kenyon is off to a hot start again this year 11-3. They do not have a signature win yet though.

Wins
Anna Maria College (2-7)
Widener University (5-6) x2
Wilmington College (3-10)
Mitchell College (10-18)
Salve Regina University (7-3) x2
Olivet College (5-3)
Univ. of Pittsburgh-Bradford (4-6) x2
Westminster College (MO) (3-3)


Losses
Anna Maria College
Mitchell College
Westminster College (MO)

They play 6 games against Marietta and Wooster next week. I suspect we'll know a lot more about them then.

No idea why they agreed to stack those as such, but they did. Will be interesting to see how creative they get with pitching in the Marietta games.

Your right Spence it will be interesting. Wooster will be conference games of coarse. So do they throw any of their weekend guys? Probably not Dierke or Jacobvitz. My guess is Krahn and Byers, will get one against Marietta.

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I know how I'd do it, but I don't want to give anyone any ideas.

Coach Schaly was a master of, well, just about everything, but playing so many more games than many teams, he ran into this situation a lot.

EDIT TO ADD: Forecast is not looking good to play on Tuesday. Wednesday looks a little better, but who knows if that's how they'd choose to do it.

[Bishopleftiesdad]

I know this is way early but I wanted to make a shout out to Freshmen Pete Munger at OWU.

As per the NCAA stats he is ranked:
1 in ERA along 15 other D3 players.
61 in Hits Allowed Per Nine Innings (150 ranked)
44 in Walks Allowed Per Nine Innings (150 ranked)
49 in WHIP (100 ranked)

On the down side OWU has 6 Players ranked 1 in Hit Batters (150 ranked)
Justin Seffernick
J.J. Buckey
Billy Cooper
Nick Huff
Peter Munger
Andrew Parise

Others stats
Zach Bott is ranked 44 with 2 home runs.


Sean Vollenweider 1, and another freshman, Taylor Hutchison 111 for Toughest to Strike Out (150 ranked)

Charles Cooper is Ranked 51 in ERA.

[Bishopleftiesdad]

Owu picks up a game against Adrian tomorrow. Can't wait to see how they perform.