BB: NCAC: North Coast Athletic Conference

[countyroad]

Wooster's fielding has been bad for a few seasons now.  Their baserunning was not that best last year either.

[woosterbooster]

Wooster not only brings a record of 11-0 into today's doubleheader against Allegheny, but the Gators will enter the contests still winless on the season at 0-6.  It's unlikely that this confluence of disparate records has ever happened before when these two teams have taken the field.

Wooster's ERA is 2.13, certainly the lowest that I can remember the Scots posting at this stage of the season.  Freshman Mark Miller has thrown 13 scoreless innings to lead the team.

Offensively, despite regulars Shaun Swearingen, Brandon Boesiger, and John Quimby getting off to slow starts, the team is hitting .342 and slugging .530.  A surprise leader in the HBP category, formerly dominated by Boesiger, is first baseman Sheldon Steiner with 6.  Freshman Justin Thomas is at .350 with 3 doubles and 2 homers in only 20 at bats.

Defensively, the Scots are not terrible, coming in at a team .958.  Shortstop Quimby and third baseman Skulina, however, are both under .900 and need to improve.  So do the Scot pitchers, who have combined for 6 of the team's 18 errors, Adam Samson contributing 3 of these.

Let's take two today, then two more tomorrow, then come home!

[imderekpoe]

A surprise leader in the HBP category, formerly dominated by Boesiger, is first baseman Sheldon Steiner with 6.  

I don't remember the numbers, but doesn't Boesinger have a chance to break the NCAA career record for HBP this year?

[woosterbooster]

Yep.  Boesiger has 61 HBP coming into this season.  I can't find the website that had the records listed but the Scot media guide says that he needs just 14 HBP this season to break the NCAA record. 

[countyroad]

Keving Sangiolo- 75 HBP in 163 games at Blackburn from 01-04.

Huge File below.

http://www.ncaa.org/library/records/baseball/baseball_records_book/2007/2007_baseball_records.pdf

[Jim Dixon]

The Scots are only allowing 3.24 runs per 9 innings.  If even only 6 of the 30 runs that the team has surrendered are unearned that would put Wooster's ERA under 3.

No guessing need:

Player                 ERA   W-L   APP  GS  CG SHO/CBO SV     IP     H   R   ER   BB  SO   B/Avg
Wooster Team.  2.13  11-0    11   11    0      1/1        1   97.0  77  36  23  35 107    .213 

[ibt100]

They are playing .good baseball.

[woosterbooster]

Wooster swept the first doubleheader from Allegheny by scores of 7-2 and 12-4 to go to 13-0 on the year.  Adam Samson went the distance in game one while Matt DeGrand and John Warren shared the duty in the second, DeGrand picking up the victory, at least according to the Allegheny website.  DeGrand went 4 2/3 innings.  Is that enough to get the win in a seven-inning game?

Wooster hit 6 homeruns on the day.  However, their pitchers also hit 4 guys, continueing a new trend this season.  Wooster pitchers have now hit 19 opponents in 13 games.  Not that I have anything against Allegheny players getting plunked, but let's make sure it happens after the game is well-decided.

[woosterbooster]

Wooster takes the second DH from Allegheny, 9-5 and 5-0.  The Scots open at 15-0 while Allegheny drops to 0-10.  Who'da thunk it? 

[Spence]

Not sure the NCAC's ever been worse. The NCAC East is an abject joke apart from Wooster. Not their fault necessarily and doesn't take anything away from them, but I'm just stating the fact. Allegheny used to be a regional-quality team and the NCAC had some good teams at the top (though the bottom's always been bad). Now Wesleyan's down a peg, Denison's down, Allegheny's way down.

[countyroad]

Yes you're right.  It's not looking very competitive. It's a good thing that Wooster has scheduled some tough out of conference games. Otterbein twice, Marietta, Kent State, and Muskingum.

[Spence]

Yeah. I'm still not sold on Muskingum (their schedule so far leaves a lot to be desired) but it'll come out in the wash soon enough. Seems Wooster did about as well as can be expected on scheduling regional opponents outside the conference.

Is the Wabash series mandated by the NCAC somehow? I notice that's the only 3 game series they play against a Western opponent.

[countyroad]

Muskingum did beat Wooster last season, so they can play them tough.  Their spring opponents were not top tier by any means.  They still have won 13 in a row.

[woosterbooster]

Over the last few seasons Wooster has generally played some games against one or two western division NCAC opponents.  Looking back at the results, it's hard to divulge a pattern to this (although they are mixing them up), especially since I believe some of the originally scheduled games ended up as casualties of inclement weather.  Which leads me to believe that it's not mandated by the NCAC but Wooster's choice to do this.  Just an educated guess, though.  And I believe that this is the first time Wabash has been on the schedule in a while.

While Wooster's Florida opponents turned out not to be top tier, it seems as if an effort in that direction was made during scheduling.  There are some good programs in there going through down pereiods.  I have no idea what happened to the Gators, who just a few years ago were nearly the equal of the Scots and very dangerous.  Now, they're playing as if they're nearly extinct.

[Spence]

Fair enough.

Allegheny's been on a pretty steady decline since coach Creehan stepped down several years ago. They really weren't very good the last couple years, but this year the bottom's fallen out.