BB: NESCAC: New England Small College Athletic Conference

[OshDude]

It's a combination of things.  First, NESCAC professors get all fussy when students miss classes for games.  Hence, fewer midweek games.  Also, the timing of a teams spring break also impacts how many games they can play.  In NE, teams rarely play a game before they head south for spring break, therefore a team with an earlier break may play 3 or 4 more games than a team that has their spring trip a week later, because they can usually get in some games that first week back.  Also, 28 is not that low of a number. Eastern Conn has played just four more games.

No Midwest Region team has played 28 in-region games. The leader has 26 through tonight. And that's with Oshkosh playing (and winning) eight nine-inning games last week, although we have a 10-run rule after seven that limited Oshkosh's innings in one game. Then again, two UWO games last week went 11 innings for a 74-inning work week. And still Oshkosh has only played 25 games.

Point being, 28 games is pretty good right now and ahead of the pace of a few regions.

[frank uible]

In New England like the midwest the number of games actually played can be easily much affected by the luck of the weather.

[Rick Vaughn]

Nice midweek efforts by the NESCAC.  Trin slaughtered EConn, Tufts did the same to D2 Bentley, Amherst beat Brandeis, and Williams squeaks past Southern VT, a team roughly the quality of a bad HS JV team. 

[ECSUalum]

Nice midweek efforts by the NESCAC.  Trin slaughtered EConn, Tufts did the same to D2 Bentley, Amherst beat Brandeis, and Williams squeaks past Southern VT, a team roughly the quality of a bad HS JV team. 

Except that ECSU beat Wesleyan, correct?

[Rick Vaughn]

Yes, but did anyone actually expect WesTech to beat ECSU?

[Rick Vaughn]

Ephs jump on WesTech in Game 1.  Complete game two-hit performance by Benz.

[espinoza]

amherst gave trinity a real battle in the doubleheader today. the first game went 11 innings, and for awhile, it seemed the jeffs might pull out the victory. they had many chances to win, but ultimately could not get a big hit in the clutch. Bayer pitched very well for Trin, but Kiely struggled.

[Bostonian]

Congrats to the Tufts seniors...first recruiting class to make the NESCAC playoffs 4 straight years.

The last Amherst-Williams game will be huge. Winner probably gets easy road to 2st round win...loser has to face Kiely.

[Nuke LaLoosh]

I think a lot of people will be interested to see what Decker does with his pitching rotation in the NESCACs. Who does he throw in the second game??? Barnard's been his boy all season but Mike Reagan has been absolutely lights out all season. I'm thinking he keeps Bayer in the pen until regionals when we seem him make the same transformation from closer to starter that Keily did in the 2005 season.
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I really thought Amherst was going to take a game yesterday, and it sounds as if they came pretty close. It also sounds as if they were pretty comfortable facing TK. Should be an interesting rematch if Williams ends up winning the West and its Amherst-Trinity on the Friday game.

Congrats to Telian, Protano, and Ragonese for joining the legendary Greg Hickey as the only players in league history to play in four NESCAC playoffs.

[Rick Vaughn]

Another encouraging sign for Amherst is how well Keenan fared against the Trin line-up.  If that is the game one matchup in the tournament it would be crazy to start Edgar over Keenan.  I think Trin would much rather face Benz and Williams than Amherst in the playoffs.  Amherst has had Trinity's number in the past in the tournament.

[ECSUalum]

Just a real quick look at NCAA D-III Team stats through 4/20 for Trinity CT:

Statistic                     Ranking                1 st place                   Trinity  As of 4/27
                                  top 30

BA                           not ranked               .393 Johns Hopk.           .342
Scoring                           14th                  12.1 Johns Hopk             9.6
Runs                       not ranked                439  Salisbury                290
Hits                         not ranked                523 La Grange               352
ERA                                 1st                     1.90 Trinity CT               1.98                   SO                                   7th                     373 Trinity TX                242
hits/9inn                          1st                     6.62 Trinity CT                 --
walks/9inn                       5th                    2.11 John Carroll              ---
fielding %                       18th                   .975  Linfield                  .962         


From Stats, Trinity is the best or up close on Pitching, fielding should be OK, (middle of pack of top 30, Hitting will be where Bantams will be weaker.

So if good pitching overcomes good hitting, the Bantams should be in pretty good shape for the GRAND SHUTE WISCONSIN

Only other question mark would be Trinity's SOS (Strength of Schedule)

[JustAFan]

Wesleyan's 4-1 win over Williams this afternoon finalizes the NESCAC tournament pairings as Williams falls to 8-3, tied with Amherst in the West, but since Amherst won the first 2 games of its series with Williams it makes Friday's final matchup between these Little 3 rivals meaningless from a standings point of view.  As a result, #1W Amherst will square off against #2E Tufts and #1E Trinity will face #2W Williams in the opening round of the league tournament in 2 weeks.  Since both of these games are scheduled to be played at the same time, I assume the Trinity game will be played at Trinity. Any idea where the other game will be played? Wesleyan?

[JustAFan]

Trinity remains undefeated, taking two from Brandeis 1-0 and 7-4 this afternoon. Great weekend for the Bantams against some quality opponents. As they did against Tufts last weekend, they showed the ability to both come from behind when needed and hold a lead in a tight game against a good opponent.

[Bostonian]

The West is undecided....Amherst and Williams play 1 game next week to decide 1st and 2nd...my guess is Wesleyan will be the other site.

[ECSUalum]

Just a real quick look at NCAA D-III Team stats through 4/20 for Trinity CT:

Statistic                     Ranking                1 st place                   Trinity  As of 4/27
                                  top 30

BA                           not ranked               .393 Johns Hopk.           .342
Scoring                           14th                  12.1 Johns Hopk             9.6
Runs                       not ranked                439  Salisbury                290
Hits                         not ranked                523 La Grange               352
ERA                                 1st                     1.90 Trinity CT               1.98                   SO                                   7th                     373 Trinity TX                242
hits/9inn                          1st                     6.62 Trinity CT                 --
walks/9inn                       5th                    2.11 John Carroll              ---
fielding %                       18th                   .975  Linfield                  .962         


From Stats, Trinity is the best or up close on Pitching, fielding should be OK, (middle of pack of top 30, Hitting will be where Bantams will be weaker.

So if good pitching overcomes good hitting, the Bantams should be in pretty good shape for the GRAND SHUTE WISCONSIN

Only other question mark would be Trinity's SOS (Strength of Schedule)

If anyone is interested, Boyd's World has DI, DII, DIII historical ( up to 2007) ISR Iterative Strength Rating including one with a combined  D-I, DII, DIII at below site:

http://www.boydsworld.com/baseball/isr/