BB: NCAC: North Coast Athletic Conference

[ScotsFan]

I'm really surprised that Hope jumed up to garner the #3 seed, while MSJ is the lowest seeded team in the regional?!  Especially when judging by how well MSJ has been playing of late.  They've won 14 of their last 16 games with those 2 losses being to Ott and RHIT.  They also pretty much rolled through the HCAC Tournament beating up on Anderson in the opening round, followed by a win over Manchester and then beating Anderson again in the championship round.  Wooster is going to have their hands full against a team that is playing a lot better than their seed.

From the looks of things, I would say Marietta got the most favorable seed of the regional coming in at the 4 seed and squaring off against arguably the weakest team in the regioanal, but somehow the 3 seed Hope. I guess Hope jumped into the 3 seed by default, but they went from being ranked #7 in the latest regional rankings to #3 because they were idle while the other top ranked teams were losing to other regionally ranked teams (Marietta, Transy, etc.).  Meanwhile OWU goes out and knocks off the #1 team, not only in the Mideast, but in the country (not once, but twice) and they are rewarded with only a 5 seed?  MSJ has a beef as they impressively swept through their conference tournament which most would say is the 2nd toughest conference in the region and are only rewarded with a 6 seed?  I would have thought that the efforts of OWU and MSJ would have been at least good enough to leapfrog Hope, but then again, when has the NCAA done anything that made sense in any sport when it concerns Division III.   

[woosterbooster]

Off topic but I'm going to post it anyway.   Despite losing to Grand Valley State in their league tournament, Ashland University managed to come away hosting a DII regional.  Theirs runs Thursday through Sunday.  So an awful lot of baseball (hopefully good) will be played later this week in northeastern Ohio.

[Spence]

Indeed, D3baseball.com had the brackets before they were updated on the NCAA site and some people posted bits and pieces starting with the Midwest region on the Daily Dose bloggy type thingy even before that.

One thing I'll say about Hope and the Michigan teams in general...they usually have a good #1 pitcher. Not sure Hope is any better of a draw than OWU or Mt. St. Joes for a first game, but I'm just happy as heck that we're in. Turner and the guest bracketologist not putting Marietta in spooked me a bit. Before that I was 70-75% confident that we'd be in. That said, some teams I was 99% confident in didn't make it (Washington & Jefferson).

Saw that on D-II Wooster Booster, can only guess Grand Valley didn't have a suitable bid.

[woosterbooster]

Here is the link to the Mideast Regional webpage, hosted by Wooster at Mills Field in Strongsville.  Game times are up, along with links to each of the teams.

http://athletics.wooster.edu/base/news/2007/regional/default.php

[Spence]

Has Hope played a night game this year? Noticed that the Marietta-Hope game is a 7 p.m. start, kind of surprisingly. Probably draw the biggest crowd though even though it's a 3 hour drive.

[OWUBaseballRocks]

Congrats to Kyle Sherman, NCAC player of the year! 

[ScotsFan]

Wooster leaves the bases loaded in the bottom of the 4th, but they do scatch a run across to lead MSJ 1-0.

MSJ's starter Waite was cruising through the 1st 3 innings, retiring the Scots in order the 1st time through the lineup.  But, in the 4th, an MSJ error got things started for Wooster and that was followed by Wooster's Steiner and Christensen connecting for the Scots' 1st and 2nd hits off Waite to score their 1st run.

Samson has been sharp for the Scots as he has allowed only one hit, that being a bunt single in the 1st.  Wooster seems to have remembered their gloves today as they have made several nice plays in the infield already today.

[countyroad]

I'm unable to connect to the audio at work, so any updates would be awesome.

[ScotsFan]

Matt Johnson hit a solo homer to give the Scots a 2-0 lead.

Samson gave up a solo homer in the 6th, but recovered to retire MSJ in order in the 7th.  Wooster is still leading 2-1 at the end of 7.

Unfortunately, I have to leave so I won't be able to make any more updates.  Sorry.

[countyroad]

Thanks, I saw that the tournament's site has live updates so I'm able to know what's going on.

[old scot]

Wooster wins 2-1 in opening round. Maybe their short coming as a team is from questionable coaching moves. Sampson is in the groove giving up 2 hits in 8 1/3rd. Pettorini pulls him with a runner on first and inserts a freshman Miller, who eventually loads the bases before getting the finial 2 outs. In the tournament you have to live and die with your horse. I saw no reason to make this move. Also Wooster bats were silent, getting only 3 hits I beleave. The no.1 team in the land will have to do more than that if they wish to advance.

[countyroad]

Wooster definitely needs to get the bats going.  As they say though, good pitching always beats good hitting.  Give MSJ some credit, they've been on a roll.

[Spence]

If there's someone going to the tournament could they please try to send a message for the live update people to actually post the 9th inning? This has happened several times with Wooster this year. They just stop posting after the 8th inning and you never see how it ended.

[countyroad]

Email the tourny directory yourself:

mdougherty@wooster.edu

[OWUBaseballRocks]

I find it funny the Wooster administration picks TODAY of all days to have the power outage, leaving the website down only after Wooster plays their games....leaving the live stats updates unavailable for games 2 and 3.  NOT PLEASED.  Not only that, but of course Otterbein's audio is not working either.  Bad Wooster. BAD.