BB: NCAC: North Coast Athletic Conference

[ScotsFan]

It's finally a final in Granville as the COW beats OWU 13-4 in game 1 of the NCAC Championship Series.  Adam Samson improves to 10-0 going 6+ allowing 3 earned to pick up the win. 

Now Wooster will try and lock up their 4th straight NCAC Tournament Championship tomorrow as the Scots will look to make it a clean sweep of both Densison and OWU in the conference tournament! 

Other regional scores of interest:

OAC Tournament Day 1 Results:

Game 1:

Otterbein - 7
Marietta - 3

Game 2:

Capital - 8
Heidelberg - 7

This sets up a really intersting losers bracket matchup between the regular season champion Heidelberg and  Marietta who was ranked #2 in the most recent Mideast Regional rankings. 

And in the HCAC:

Game 1:

MSJ - 6
Anderson - 1

Game 2

Manchester - 5
Transy - 2

This sets up a really interesting winner's bracket matchup between Manchester who always seems to step it up a notch come post-season play and MSJ who IMO is the team to beat out of the HCAC.

Sould be some fun games to track starting tomorrow morning and throughout the afternoon.

[woosterbooster]

Wooster had the bats working in game one, and that was more than enough to offset some other malfunctions.  Two errors (two more should have been credited), some poor communication on pop flies, and an amazing inning in which they had three baserunning blunders: two guys picked off and another thrown out trying to advance to third on a comebacker.  OWU's defense was horrible as they went through periods where they threw the ball around like a bad little league team.  All in all a reasonably ugly game, but a win is a win is a win.

Adam Samson was bloodied a bit but also had some nice moments working out of jams and making some nice defensive plays.  Both John Warren and Matt DeGrand were perfect in relief.  It was never necessary for the esteemed Doctor Miller to make a house call.

And c'mon, OWU, where do you get these names?  Sean Ring?  Sean Speed?  If you're going to allow your mound staff to use aliases at least issue them monikors that have the sound of plausibility.  These seem more to be straight out of Marvel comics or a Saturday morning cartoon show.

Heather: Nice job of coming around and cheering for the Scots after that initial outburst.  I still suspect, though, that you might be an OWU spy so will be keeping the tar and feathers handy.

Granville is easily my favorite town in all of Ohio.  Anyone who hasn't been there should make the trip even if there isn't a ballgame.  The downtown is the way a small town's should be; busy with people enjoying the various shops and restaurants.  What a great place.   

[OWUBaseballRocks]

Wooster Booster, at least our supposed Marvel comic superhero's played well today.  What kind of random comment was that anyways? Do you really think they let these kids have fake names?  I could do nothing but shake my head at that comment, being the attempted lowblow for not being able to say anything nice.

Sorry to the Wooster seniors that they couldn't keep up a NCAC championship for 4 years, but major congrats to all the OWU players and good luck in NCAA D. III playoffs!!!  So proud of you guys!

[woosterbooster]

Wooster Booster, at least our supposed Marvel comic superhero's played well today.  What kind of random comment was that anyways? Do you really think they let these kids have fake names?  I could do nothing but shake my head at that comment, being the attempted lowblow for not being able to say anything nice.

It was neither a "random" comment nor a low blow.  Do you really believe that I thought the names were fake?  Gimme a break.  It was a remark totally meant in fun and it seems to me that you should have understood that, given the smiley face following it.

[OWUBaseballRocks]

And they pushed the games back because Thursday was the last day of finals for OWU, where they usually put the most popular time-slot classes, so too many players would have been missing from the OWU bench.  Friday on the other hand was completely free for OWU.

WooBoo, it was just an odd comment, especially considering some of us used to call Kurt, "Captain Kurt" last year as we watched him launch balls. 

Previously working for the Great Lakes League too, I'm excited to see the Regionals played in Strongsville.  I may actually take time off work to come see these games.

[ScotsFan]

Welcome to the board OWUbbr. 

Did the College of Wooster baseball team's equipment manager forget to put the Scots' gloves on the bus yesterday?  Eight errors in the double header?!  That's just unacceptable by a team that wants to be considered a national championship contender.

Hats off to OWU as the Battling Bishops certainly lived up to their namesake yesterday battling back to sweep the COW pretty soundly in both games!  They definately brought their hitting shoes yesterday!

Back to Wooster's fielding issues.  I think you could definately point to their lack of fielding as an area that really cost the Scots big time yesterday!  You don't have to look much further than the lines for Wooster's starters yesterday to see the impact the errors made.  Trapuzzano gave up 6 runs, but only 3 were earned and Barnes was hit even harder by the errors as he gave up 7 runs with only 3 earned!  When you keep giving a team like OWU extra outs, they are going to make you pay eventually and they certainly did that on every occasion it seemed yesterday.  If the Scots continue to field like they did yesterday, it will be another quick exit for them in the regionals.  Plain and simple!

[countyroad]

I know I'm not the only one that's been saying defense (or lack of) is Wooster's achilles heal.  It's too bad. 

[Spence]

Figures...the one time I actually wouldn't mind seeing Wooster win. Gotta be kidding me.

[OWUBaseballRocks]

It really was sloppy games for both teams the entire series.  Between both teams I think they had more than 20 errors.  That's embarassing for Pettorini and Durant. 

[Spence]

Works out well for the NCAC though getting an extra bid and Wooster probably staying the 1 seed.

Is there precedent for 4 Pool C berths from the same region?

[Pat Coleman]

We only have one year of this tournament size to work with. Not sure there's enough there to have a track record on anything.

[Spence]

Oh yeah...kinda slipped my mind. Long night last night lol.

If Capital wins today, I really don't want to be the committee trying to shoehorn like 9 or 10 Mideast teams into the field somewhere.

[woosterbooster]

Randomly aligned thoughts from Denison:

OWU is the best bunting team that I've seen in years, college or otherwise.  They popped up a couple on Thursday, but on Friday they were terrific, almost always getting the ball down on the first attempt.  Only some nice defense by Rob Skulina at third and some of the Wooster pitchers kept some of the OWU sacrifices from turning into base hits.

OWU hit the ball well, certainly better than Wooster, but so many of their ground balls seemed to have eyes and find holes.  Contrast that to the shot that Steiner hit in the ninth, a scorcher that hit the OWU pitcher then landed right in front of him for an easy out.

Certainly a record was broken for coincidence when the first two Wooster batters in game three circled the bases because the OWU center fielder lost consecutive balls in the sun!

In game three of a best of three series, when there is no baseball to be played until five days down the road, you have to let it all hang out with your pitching staff.  Freshman starter Matt Barnes was getting hit and receiving no help from his defense (all 5 Wooster errors were during his 4 innings of work).  I'd have had Mark Miller, who has generally been lights out this season, in there early to try to hold the fort.  Eventually The Doctor was called, but the patient was already dead.

Defensively, these Friday games were walking contradictions.  Both teams make some excellent, even nearly-spectacular, plays in the field.  The OWU outfielders made some fine running and diving catches.  Wooster's Oliver Enos did as well, plummeting over the right-field fence after catching a foul ball.  But so many routine plays were botched.  Balls were inexplicably dropped, thrown away, or thrown to the wrong base.  Ghosts of former Oberlin and Hiram players must have been roaming the field, harrassing the actual particapants and/or giving them errant information about what to do with the ball.

Can Wooster still get the top seed in the regional which they are hosting?  I don't think so, and if they do, they've certainly backed into it.  If they don't, there can be no complaints.  Hopefully they'll still be in the Mideast and not travelling to one regional while hosting another!  

[woosterbooster]

Wooster did pull down the top seed in the Mideast, which is a six-team regional.  The teams in order of seeding are:

1. Wooster (40-5)
2. Otterbein (31-11)
3. Hope (28-11)
4. Marietta (28-14)
5. Ohio Wesleyan (24-13)
6. Mount St. Joseph (33-9)

Wooster will play the first game on Wednesday, against Mt. St. Joseph's.  Should they win, they'll play in Game 5, which is the second game on Thursday, against the loser of the Hope-Marietta game.  Should Wooster lose to Mt. St. Joe's, they'll play in Game 4, which is the first game on Thursday, against the loser between Otterbein and OWU.

The format for the tournament where six teams participate:
Game 1—Wooster vs. Mt. St. Joseph's
Game 2—Otterbein vs Ohio Wesleyan
Game 3—Hope vs Marietta
Game 4—Loser Game 1 vs. Loser Game 2
Game 5—Winner Game 1 vs. Loser Game 3
Game 6—Winner Game 2 vs. Winner Game 3

If four teams remain after Game 6, the following procedure will be observed:
Game 7—Winner Game 5 vs. Winner Game 6
Game 8—Winner Game 4 vs. Loser Game 6
Game 9—Loser Game 7 vs. Winner Game 8
Game 10—Winner Game 7 vs. Winner Game 9
Game 11—If necessary, same teams as in Game 10

If five teams remain after Game 6, the following procedure will be observed:
Game 7—Loser Game 5 vs. Loser Game 6
Game 8—Winner Game 4 vs. Winner Game 5
Game 9—Winner Game 6 vs. Winner Game 7

If two teams remain after Game 9, the following procedure will be observed:
Game 10—Winner Game 8 vs. Winner Game 9
Game 11—If necessary, same teams as in Game 10

If three teams remain after Game 9, the following procedure will be observed:
Game 10—Winner Game 8 vs. Loser Game 9
Game 11—Winner Game 9 vs. Winner Game 10

In all six-team tournaments, Games 1, 2 and 3 will be played on the first day; Games 4, 5 and 6 will be played on the second day; Games 7, 8 and 9 will be played on the third day, and Games 10 and 11 will be played on the fourth day.

Here is the link showing the contestants and seeds in all eight regionals:

[Pat Coleman]

Booster:

The front page of D3baseball.com has a link to the same information. Let's keep people here and not send them off to the NCAA site. Those days are over -- we don't need to feed their machine anymore now that D3baseball.com is in full ... err, swing.