BB: NCAC: North Coast Athletic Conference

[EttaFan1]

I can remember a time when in baseball it was Wooster, Allegheny, and OWU, then a bunch of garbage.  Wittenberg occaisionally put together a competitive team, but not very often.  Those three dominated the NCAC and regularly sent two teams to the regionals.  While I admit I don't follow the conference very closely, I have noticed that Allegheny, until this year, had fallen on hard times.  That alone upset the competitive balance for baseball.  Then when you add in quality teams like DePauw and Wabash, it makes it even more unbalanced. 

Blame Allegheny.  It's all their fault.

Round robin would be a better way to go.  It's a 10 team conference, why have divisions in the first place?  Sure the trip from Meadville to Wabash or DePauw is not pleasant, but you don't have to schedule that for Wednesday night.  Play on Saturday.  (They don't usually schedule Marietta to go to Tiffin to play Heidelberg for mid week games either). 

It's still Allegheny's fault. (What was the name of the coach who was there for years?  His son was a thirdbaseman and committed an NCAA record for errors in a regional game against Marietta one year in the reional final). 

[forheavendial4999]

It's still Allegheny's fault. (What was the name of the coach who was there for years?  His son was a thirdbaseman and committed an NCAA record for errors in a regional game against Marietta one year in the reional final).

Kevin Creehan was the coach. The player I don't think was related. If you really want to know who the player was, you can look it up, but I'm not going to name him here. That was just an awful thing to watch.

Allegheny is on the fringes of Pool C contention right now...it's still unlikely, though.

[Bishopleftiesdad]

I can remember a time when in baseball it was Wooster, Allegheny, and OWU, then a bunch of garbage.  Wittenberg occaisionally put together a competitive team, but not very often.  Those three dominated the NCAC and regularly sent two teams to the regionals.  While I admit I don't follow the conference very closely, I have noticed that Allegheny, until this year, had fallen on hard times.  That alone upset the competitive balance for baseball.  Then when you add in quality teams like DePauw and Wabash, it makes it even more unbalanced. 

Blame Allegheny.  It's all their fault.

Round robin would be a better way to go.  It's a 10 team conference, why have divisions in the first place?  Sure the trip from Meadville to Wabash or DePauw is not pleasant, but you don't have to schedule that for Wednesday night.  Play on Saturday.  (They don't usually schedule Marietta to go to Tiffin to play Heidelberg for mid week games either). 

It's still Allegheny's fault. (What was the name of the coach who was there for years?  His son was a thirdbaseman and committed an NCAA record for errors in a regional game against Marietta one year in the reional final).

The thing is all the conference games are played as double headers on the weekends. All week day games are non-conference. So I really do not see a reason not to play. They were able to get round robin for one season. After that season they lost the votes of several teams in the east. If there are any upsets this weekend I think there will be a push to drop the cross over games. I really do not think that the west will vote to go back to the top two seeds from the two divisions.

[Bishopleftiesdad]

OWU beats Capital last night. 5-4. OWU used a bunch of Bench guys who had not seen much playing time during the year. They did well. Nice to see Seffermick (Fr) go 5 innings with 3 earned runs on 7 hits. He hadn't seen a start or innings since Florida.

I think Capital has an outside chance of getting into THe OAC tourney. They play 2 Against Heidi on Saturday, so I cannot be sure if we saw there best pitching. I have to imagine that we were seeing their regular lineup though.

A lot of good performances from some young bishops.

[EttaFan1]

outside chance is right.  Here is what has to happen just to force the tie breaker scenarios.

1. Cap must sweep heidelberg. Not impossible, but not easy a split eliminates both.
2. Either Otterbein or Mount Union must lose twice on Saturday.  (Ott plays BW, Mount plays Muskingum. ) Worst record for either is 9-9. Mount union being swept by a bad Musky team is not likely.  Otterbein being swept by an OK B-W team is certainly possible (in fact that is the outcome I expect).
3. Depending on #2, Ohio Northern could be a factor as well, as they can finish 10-8, 9-9 or 8-10.  So Capital needs Northern to be 9-9 or worse to be in the mix. ONU plays John Carroll, and JCU is playing very well when their top two pitchers play.  Northern will be very fortunate to score against the streaks, let alone win.   

Then if everything goes cap's way, there are numerous tie break scenarios which I have not explored because I think it is a LONG shot and not worth the time right now.
 

[Bishopleftiesdad]

Don't blame for not looking up all the scenarios. I was just trying to Justify OWU's win with the caveat that we did not see their best pitchers, they are saving them for Hiedi, but we should have seen their regular position players because they need to be ready for Heidi.

[Dr. Acula]

OWU beats Capital last night. 5-4. OWU used a bunch of Bench guys who had not seen much playing time during the year. They did well. Nice to see Seffermick (Fr) go 5 innings with 3 earned runs on 7 hits. He hadn't seen a start or innings since Florida.

I think Capital has an outside chance of getting into THe OAC tourney. They play 2 Against Heidi on Saturday, so I cannot be sure if we saw there best pitching. I have to imagine that we were seeing their regular lineup though.

A lot of good performances from some young bishops.

Yeah, I looked at the box score.  I didn't recognize any of the guys that pitched for either team!  Cap definitely didn't use any of their normal "OAC" arms.  Looked like their normal position players though.

[woosterbooster]

Wooster took two games today from OWU, 11-3, and 15-5.  Not that you would know that if you were trying to follow by LiveStats, which not only had the score way off but had Wooster starting mostly a JV lineup in game two.  Unbelievable.  If you can't do that right, please don't do it.

Now are you guys telling me that they still play the third, and now meaningless, game on Sunday?  Wow.

[Bishopleftiesdad]

Congratulations Wooster and Denison on the sweeps. Yes they do play tomorrow. That was an insistence by the presidents. They did not want it to be a two weekend tourney but part of the regular season.

[woosterbooster]

Maybe a better way to do this would be to play the three games of these crossover series and then just add the wins and losses to each team's league record.  At that point, take those records, and the top two from each division are the teams that go to the tournament.  It's not possible that that's how they're doing it this season, is it?  That would explain why Wooster was already listed, on the NCAC site, as being in the tournament at Chillocothe prior to this weekend.

[Bishopleftiesdad]

No that is not what they were doing. There would be no point. Wooster has been int the torney on the schedule since the beginning of the year. I have had confirmation from several sources.

[ScotsFan]

Congratulations Wooster and Denison on the sweeps. Yes they do play tomorrow. That was an insistence by the presidents. They did not want it to be a two weekend tourney but part of the regular season.

This makes no sense to me whatsoever as if it has at all prior to reading this.  By making these 3 game cross-over series a winner takes all, i.e. winner advances to the NCAC Tournament, they are TOTALLY making this into a two weekend tournament?!  If their intent was to NOT make it into a two weekend tournament they should have just made these games count towards the regular season as opposed to making you have to win the series to advance to Chillicothe... 

[woosterbooster]

Congratulations Wooster and Denison on the sweeps. Yes they do play tomorrow. That was an insistence by the presidents. They did not want it to be a two weekend tourney but part of the regular season.

This makes no sense to me whatsoever as if it has at all prior to reading this.  By making these 3 game cross-over series a winner takes all, i.e. winner advances to the NCAC Tournament, they are TOTALLY making this into a two weekend tournament?!  If their intent was to NOT make it into a two weekend tournament they should have just made these games count towards the regular season as opposed to making you have to win the series to advance to Chillicothe... 

I completely agree.  Whatever the league says, these games are part of the tournament, and it's an eight-team tournament.  Which is ridiculously unfair to the division winners because in a short series anything can happen.

I do think that a non-divisional, round-robin regular-season schedule would be very difficult because of the distances involved and the real possibility of poor weather.  Why not, in the future, do this in the manner that I mentioned?  Keep the divisions, keep the cross-over series as is, except really do have them consist of three regular-season games.  Then, after they're played, the teams with the top two records from each division get into the tournament?  Not a perfect set-up, but better, I think, than what they've done this season, or in the past.

[wooscotsfan]

Sunday, May 5th Final Scores:

Oberlin 9  Wittenberg 6
Allegheny 5  DePauw 3
Denison 7  Kenyon 1
Wooster 12  OWU 6

So, NCAC East gets 3 teams into the final 4 of the NCAC tournament next weekend (Wooster, Allegheny, Oberlin along with Denison from the West)

[Bishopleftiesdad]

Congratulations Wooster and Denison on the sweeps. Yes they do play tomorrow. That was an insistence by the presidents. They did not want it to be a two weekend tourney but part of the regular season.

This makes no sense to me whatsoever as if it has at all prior to reading this.  By making these 3 game cross-over series a winner takes all, i.e. winner advances to the NCAC Tournament, they are TOTALLY making this into a two weekend tournament?!  If their intent was to NOT make it into a two weekend tournament they should have just made these games count towards the regular season as opposed to making you have to win the series to advance to Chillicothe... 

I completely agree.  Whatever the league says, these games are part of the tournament, and it's an eight-team tournament.  Which is ridiculously unfair to the division winners because in a short series anything can happen.

I do think that a non-divisional, round-robin regular-season schedule would be very difficult because of the distances involved and the real possibility of poor weather.  Why not, in the future, do this in the manner that I mentioned?  Keep the divisions, keep the cross-over series as is, except really do have them consist of three regular-season games.  Then, after they're played, the teams with the top two records from each division get into the tournament?  Not a perfect set-up, but better, I think, than what they've done this season, or in the past.

Congratulations to all the teams that made the tournament.
I do not think the west would agree to that. The point is you cannot compare the records from the east and west from year to year. How long has it been since Hiram has won a series. How long has it been since they have one a game in the NCAC. That's two or three built in wins for the east every year. This is the first year in a long time that Oberlin has been over .500.  Again historically there has been an in-balance in the league.

So for now it is round robin or this.