BB: NCAC: North Coast Athletic Conference

[Little Giant 89]

The Little Giants hired former Michigan Wolverine and NY Met Draft pick, Mac Lozer as an assistant coach today.  Lozer was most recently the pitching coach at Brebeuf Jesuit in Indianapolis.

[Pops33]

4 straight for the Streaks now.  4-1.  Musky is 7-0 but I've learned from recent years not to buy too much into their early success.  Especially when you look at the schedule.  Surprising?  Cap being just under .500 although their schedule also not great on the wins side.  Berg dropped to 2-5 today.  They're really struggling hitting so far barely hitting .200 as a team and other than Matusak not great pitching either.  Ott has awaken the bats the last couple games to improve to 2-4.  Granted, playing OWU tends to help your bats.  As someone old enough to remember when OWU was a top 10 national team the prolonged subpar play is odd. 

I watched the Otterbein - OWU game and it was competitive (4-1 through 7)until the relief pitching for OWU imploded in the 8th inning, where they gave up 7 runs.  The starting pitching for OWU has been pretty good so far this season, with each starter only giving up 2 ER.  The bats are having a slow start, they can't seem to put up many runs.  With a good cast of returning players I think they will be around .500 again this year but they need to starting putting up some Ws or the hole will be too big to dig out of.

[old scot]

Wooster's program has taken quite a fall the last 3 seasons. After 47 consecutive winning seasons the last 3 have not been up to the standards set before them.
 After 6 games, stats: 5.29 ERA, .215 team BA with over 33% of their outs coming on wiffs.

Coach Swick is in year 3 and its time to get back to winning. Surprised with the hire when there are many successful Wooster alum in the college coaching ranks. Also, looking at the roster he seems to be recruiting nationally.

[Dr. Acula]

Isn't Swick only in year 2?  Craddock got the Wilmington job in the summer of 2023.  Regardless the point remains valid about the state of the program.  Wooster is accustomed to a certain level of success in baseball.  I can't imagine the last time they went 5-11 in conference play.  Ever?  I looked at the breakdown of that NCAC schedule last year.  They didn't sweep anyone in NCAC play.  Zero.  That should never happen for the Scots.  With the current state of the NCAC Wooster should be a mainstay in the top 3 most years. 

[old scot]

Dr., you are correct. Swick is in year 2. This years team includes his first full recruiting class.

[Dr. Acula]

That's fine and there should be some amount of patience but 5-11 with the current top to bottom strength of the NCAC isn't acceptable.  If he was playing a bunch of young guys and the results improve a lot this year?  Fine.  You're building.  If not?  It's an issue at best on the horizon at worst in your lap.  They cannot let the old standard get too small in the rearview mirror.

[old scot]

I believe I read in the D3 regional preview Swick wanted to change the "culture". He has. Woo gets swept at home by Brockport, falls to 1-7

[Pops33]

BIG win by Denison yesterday 11-3 over Endicott.  They have turned in a great record on a ridiculously hard schedule, with wins over national-type programs Endicott, Cortland, Lynchburg, Roanoke, Johns Hopkins, and Christopher Newport.  They will should walk through the conference.  If Deegan does not make the World Series this year, I think he will be severely disappointed.

Wittenberg seems strong again this year, but not sure who else will be competitive with them as only Wittenberg and Wabash have winning records at this point.  It may turn out to be a dogfight for the last couple of spots in the conference tourney though!

[Dr. Acula]

Don't look now but the Scots are on a little roll.  Back to 10-10 with some solid play recently.  With the state of the NCAC I'm obviously not saying they're on Denison or even Witt's level, but beyond that?  It's not unrealistic.

[Pops33]

With Conference play starting this weekend it will be interesting to see which teams separate themselves.  Wooster has been on a good roll and they play OWU this weekend at home so the possibility is there for a good roll.  OWU has some guys that can hit, its just a matter of if their pitchers will be effective against the Scots.

Other matchups are Hiram @ Wabash, Kenyon @ Denison, Wittenberg @ Depaul, and Oberlin plays a non-conference game against Allegheny on Sunday. Looking forward to see how the games go.

[Bishopleftiesdad]

With Conference play starting this weekend it will be interesting to see which teams separate themselves.  Wooster has been on a good roll and they play OWU this weekend at home so the possibility is there for a good roll.  OWU has some guys that can hit, its just a matter of if their pitchers will be effective against the Scots.

Other matchups are Hiram @ Wabash, Kenyon @ Denison, Wittenberg @ Depaul, and Oberlin plays a non-conference game against Allegheny on Sunday. Looking forward to see how the games go.

OWU has always had trouble playing at Wooster. Their field can be a launching pad. I have watched a few games there.

[old scot]

Got to see Woo play LaRoche. My assessment: Have 3 players who can swing the stick, after that pretty big fall off. Struck out looking often. Looking at team stats they just wiff a lot as a team. Defensively they just lack overall athleticism and snap, not very sound fundamentally. Scots starter threw decent for 5 then the bull pen took over.The guys brought in did ok but very average.

As for the team, average team playing average competition leads to 10-10. I would have to say making the NCAC playoffs would be a successful season.