BB: NCAC: North Coast Athletic Conference

[Pops33]

The NCAC post season starts this weekend with the cross-over series.  Best 2 out of 3 with the winners heading to the double elimination tournament in Chillicothe next weekend.  Kenyon and OWU start today with the rest of the series starting tomorrow.

Kenyon    @   Ohio Wesleyan
DePauw    @   Allegheny       
Wabash    @   Wooster       
Oberlin    @   Denison       
   
The series to determine 9th & 10th place:
Hiram    @   Wittenberg   

Obviously the home teams are the favorites.  The visiting teams all have a couple of pitchers that could steal a game from the favorite and make for a very interesting series.  The West has 4 of the 5 best team ERAs in the conference with DePauw being the league leader.  The four home teams have the best offensive stats on the year in the conference.  It should be an exciting weekend.

Let the games begin!

[Bishopleftiesdad]

I agree. The only problem I have with the Tourney is that I wish they would reseed after the Cross over.

[Pops33]

 The East finished the exact same way as last year and the Denison and DePauw just switched #1 & #3 in the West.  So if Oberlin pulls another upset and the other favorites win their series, it will be exactly the same bracket in Chillicothe as last year. 

[Bishopleftiesdad]

Yes and if Wabash some how beats wooster they will jump OWU, if they win and become a number one. Makes the regular season all abut the cross over series and not the tournament. I would prefer if they reseeded based on the Regular season after the Cross over.

[Whats a Yeomen]

Yeomen take the first game against Denison 3-2.

Denison had runners on 1st and 3rd with 1 out in the bottom of the 9th.  Batter hits a high chopper back to the pitcher, run down between home and third leads to a tag out and then the batter was thrown out trying to take second for a game ending double play.

[old scot]

Woo beats bash 3-0 and 23-9. Gets a spot in the NCAC playoffs. This cross over series is garbage. Top 2 in the east and west should meet in the tourney. Not like TV money has an influence on prolonging the tourney.  Only thing that could happened is a lesser team having a hot weekend to take down a better team.

[Bishopleftiesdad]

Looks like the field is set. For the first time since the cross over began, 3 West teams will be in the tourney.
Wooster v.s OWU.
Denison Vs. DePauw.

Depauw is on a hot streak, so They should not be taken for granted. Gool luck.
GO Bishops.....

[Pops33]

It looks like they will not be jamming the tournament into just days like last year.  Denison has graduation on Saturday and if they make the championship round, teh championship games will be played on Sunday instead of Saturday so the Denison student-athletes can enjoy their graduation ceremony.  This is a much better solution than the possibility of someone having to play 5, 9-inning games in 2 days, to win the tournament out of the loser's bracket.

[Dr. Acula]

Woo beats bash 3-0 and 23-9. Gets a spot in the NCAC playoffs. This cross over series is garbage. Top 2 in the east and west should meet in the tourney. Not like TV money has an influence on prolonging the tourney.  Only thing that could happened is a lesser team having a hot weekend to take down a better team.

I'm certainly not a huge fan of the crossover stuff, but isn't someone making the tourney based purely on geography garbage as well?  There were numerous years where the #2 in the east was not good.  At all.  The #3 or #4 in the west would have beat them easily, but they got to go only because someone from the east besides Woo had to go too.  The NCAC always circles back to the problem that the ideal situation competitively (full round robin) is not feasible practically.  I give them credit for at least trying to figure out another way aside from just top 2 from each half.

[Bishopleftiesdad]

+1 Doc,
The cross over is not the best alternative, but the best alternative was tried and immediately removed, after one year. If Wooster doesn't like the cross over, they could pound the drum for round robin.

[old scot]

Woo takes down OWU in the first round of the NCAC playoffs

[Pops33]

I was surprised that OWU started Zullo in the first game after Munger was their #1 starter for most of the season.  Wooster got the best of him and scored in each of the first three innings.  Wielansky then hit a monster 3 run blast in the 5th inning to knock him out of the game.

In the second game, DePauw scored one in the first and 4 in the second to take control of the game.  As BLD indicated, DePauw has been hot lately and they showed it by taking down #1 seed Denison. 

Wooster-DePauw game today at noon.  Guessing it will be Saran vs. Futterknecht.  Interesting note is that Futterknecht pitched 6 shutout innings against Wooster in the championship game 2 years ago to give DePauw the conference title.

Rivals Denison and OWU will follow at 4 pm in an elimination game.

[NCACfan22]

Depauw walks off Wooster in the 11th. Puts Wooster in a very tough place for tomorrow. Maybe Wooster just isn't a "postseason" team...struggles in Chillicothe continue

[old scot]

Scots beat Tigers 5-1. Final game of the NCAC tourney starts at 4:00 PM. Winner takes the title. Go Scots

[wooscotsfan]

Wooster completes the sweep of DePauw today by winning the second game 10-5, clinching the NCAC title and the NCAA automatic bid.

Denison and Ohio Wesleyan will have to wait and see if they receive an at-large bid when the NCAA field is announced on Monday.

GO SCOTS!