BB: SCAC: Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference

[FlightofthePetrel]

Depauw over Austin in 3
Rhodes over Millsaps in 3
Southwestern over Centre in 2
Oglethorpe over Trinity in 3

Gotta have faith...

[historymajor]

Trinity over Oglethorpe in 3 (nothing comes easy this year)
Southwestern over Centre in 2
Millsaps over Rhodes in 3
DePauw over Austin in 3

[Krakatoa]

By the numbers......

Okay, it was a wee bit slow at work today, so I occupied my time with number-crunching.  We all know that the numbers don't tell the whole story (strength of schedule is huge here, but too much work for me!), and that the HEART variable can wreak havoc on expected outcomes, but here are some match-ups by the numbers.

RHODES
Andy Holt...........       2.84   66.2 
Chris Catalanotto...  3.38   42.2 
Robert Flanagan.....  3.43   57.2 
Hunter Chandler.....  5.81   26.1 
Taylor Babich.......     6.61   31.1

Average  ERA of top five IP: 4.14

Team BA:  .319

MILLSAPS
Aaron Williams......    3.40   55.2 
Tait Hendrix........      3.43   60.1 
Travis Bogue........     4.10   59.1
Drew Maddox.........   5.13   33.1 
Brandon Ingram......  6.64   39.1

Average ERA of top five IP: 4.54

Team BA:  .289

-----------------------------------------

AUSTIN
Garrett Adcock......   5.70   30.0
Will Chermak........   6.28   61.2
Bobby Schleizer.....  6.53   30.1 
Tyler Steed.........     7.75   40.2 
Cory Stevens........   8.77   40.0

Average ERA of top five IP:  7.00

Team BA:  .298

DEPAUW
John Tschantz.......  1.63   60.2 
Jeremy Alland.......   3.35   51.0 
Aaron Meyers........  3.88   46.1
Derek Bryant........   3.16   25.2
Brad Gerlach........    6.48   33.1

Average ERA of top five IP: 3.70

Team BA: .308

-----------------------------------------

TRINITY
Evan Bronson........  2.26   59.2 
Brian Oates.........    3.09   64.0 
Ryan Poffenroth.....  3.88   48.2
Britton Horn........     4.88   24.0
Zach Bukowski.......  5.23   31.0

Average ERA of top five IP: 3.87

Team BA:  .336

OGLETHORPE
John Hale...........   5.40   46.2 
Sam Briend..........  7.06   51.0 
Sean Tuttle.........   7.74   50.0 
Nick Greenfield.....  8.19   48.1
Brad Brickhouse..... 8.55   33.2

Average ERA of top five IP: 7.39

Team BA:  .278 

Lastly:

Average Team ERA of the East (all teams):   5.95
Average Team ERA of the West (all teams):  6.39

Average Team BA of the East (all teams):  .297
Average Team BA of the West (all teams):  .309

Avg Winning % in the East (overall):  .495
Avg Winning % in the West (overall):  .526

For what it's worth.......probably not the cyber-paper it's printed on, but it helped kill an hour at the office!

[consultant]

Depauw over Austin in 3
Millsaps over Rhodes  in 2
Southwestern over Centre in 2
Trinity over Oglethorpe in 2

[Krakatoa]

Why I think that the DePauw-Austin series could be very interesting.....and just like College Hoops bracket picks, why I'd pick Austin to take this one, or at the very least to take it to three in a very, very close series.  

DePauw's wins have come against teams with a total average winning percentage of .461  (could be a bit lower --  Central Baptist stopped keeping track of its wins and losses a month ago....and were losing almost every game).

Austin's wins have come against teams with a total average winning percentage of .563

[frank_ezelle]

After over 6 hours of rain delay, it looks like Millsaps and Rhodes will get started around 5:15 this afternoon.  That is scheduled to be followed by DePauw and Austin at 8:15 and then in the midnight special for those in the Atlanta area, Trinity and OU are slated to hit the field at 11:15 Central time.  Anyone at OU going to stay up past midnight for the first pitch?

The schedule shows Southwestern and Centre playing at 8 this evening so that obviously has to be an alternate location.  You can get links to audio, video and live stats at the SCAC site ( http://www.scac-online.org/ ).

[scaccommish]

After a long delay we are finally under way at Millington.

To clarify...if we get all three games in tonight, Southwestern and Centre will play the first game of their series at 1 p.m. Saturday over at Rhodes College.

The rest of Saturday's schedule would remain unchanged, with Southwestern and Centre playing the second game of their series at 8 p.m. at Millington.

You can watch and/or listen to all games for free at the Divisional website:
http://www.scac-online.org/baseball_divisional08/index.html

[Ralph Turner]

Rhodes pounded Millsaps in the first game.

AC just chased DPU's Tschantz from the mound in the top of the seventh and leads 6-0.  Bladwin gets Finke for the 3rd out.  DPU up.

Thanks for the livestats.

[Ralph Turner]

AC 7, DPU 0 Final

[Ron Boerger]

Crimeny, Oglethorpe and Trinity are still playing, top of the fourth with Trinity up 9-1.

[Krakatoa]

AC 7, DPU 0 Final

Yep...I didn't watch, but looks like they hit Tschantz pretty well. 13 hits over 6-something innings.  And AU threw their fifth guy in terms of IP this season - a kid carrying an 8.77 ERA after the regular season.  So now DU has spent it's #1 kid versus AU's (arguably) #5 kid.  Who's in the driver's seat? 

I think I've called this series correctly. It may go three, but I firmly believe Austin will take it.

[frank_ezelle]

There seems to be something about Austin and the post season play.  I've never seen Tschantz pitched but his numbers were so good and he shut down the Rhodes hitters last week, so my best guess was that he would be a tough guy to hit in game one of the crossover.  Bad guess.  Plus, it appears that Austin pitchers improve remarkably once the regular season gets out of the way.  For the record, Stevens is one of the main starters for Austin so it's not quite accurate to describe him as a #5 kid.  He pitched the opening games in the last two SCAC series that Austin played.

The good news for Millsaps is that the score goes back to 0-0 today.  I have to give Rhodes credit all around for how they dominated yesterday's game.  Millsaps couldn't find an answer at the plate or on the mound against Rhodes and this game wasn't the game most expected.  It's hard to find a silver lining to a game last this, but it's worth remembering that this isn't the first 14-2 loss in 7 innings that Millsaps has had this season.  That was the result on March 28th against Southwestern and Millsaps came back behind freshman Aaron Williams and won the next day 7-1.  Aaron will be on the mound today and all Millsaps fans hope that history will repeat itself.  Aaron did pitch 5 innings of 1-hit ball against Rhodes in the opening weekend of the series--I'm not sure if that is a telling stat or not since we are talking about mid-February.

IF Millsaps wins today, they'll comeback Sunday with Travis Bogue and he pitched well against Trinity last week.  I believe Millsaps has the pitching to come back and win this series.  The question will be if they can get some runs against the Rhodes pitchers.  That has been a question mark all season and Millsaps will need to come up with the right answers today and tomorrow or the season will be over for the Majors.

[jekelish]

For the record, Stevens is one of the main starters for Austin so it's not quite accurate to describe him as a #5 kid.  He pitched the opening games in the last two SCAC series that Austin played.

Correct.  Chermak and Stevens are basically 1A and 1B for the 'Roos.  Stevens doesn't have the innings because, frankly, at the end of the season we played some OOC games, and he was being rested.  However, in two of his last three starts he was pretty much lights out (except for one inning against Trinity).  Against Hendrix, he went 7 complete shutout innings with 12 K's, and then his next game against Trinity he went 6 innings, four runs, 9 K's in what was a pitchers duel until the Tigers finally got to him in that sixth inning (before that, they pretty much couldn't touch him).  Basically, when Stevens is on, he's extremely tough.  He's a competitive kid who can hit the low 90's on the gun.

It'll be interesting today to see if Chermak follows up his outstanding postseason from a year ago, when he was just a frosh.  Last year, when he was on the mound for the 'Roos in the playoffs down at Southwestern, there was just a sense that he wasn't going to lose.  Hopefully for the 'Roos, he'll get that form back today.  He's been a bit up and down this year, but when he's on, he's unhittable.  He blanked UT-Tyler a couple weeks ago, for example, and obviously everyone saw what he did in the SCAC tourney last year.

Either way, it should be interesting to see how this all plays out.

[Ralph Turner]

Millsaps steals one...

Bases loaded for Millsaps in the bottom of the 9th trailing by one with 2 outs, Malaschak gets caught leaning the wrong way of 2B on a ball three pitch to give a full count.  The Rhodes catcher tries to throw him out at 2nd and the ball goes into the infield to score the tying and winning run.  Millsaps, 6-5.  Game three tomorrow.

[frank_ezelle]

Millsaps takes a 6-5 win over Rhodes in a game with an odd and sudden ending.  Millsaps was down 5-4 in the bottom of the 9th with the bases loaded as Rhodes had just given an intentional walk to Hunter Owen.  With Derrick Boland at the plate and a 2-2 count, the Rhodes pitcher through a ball to give a full count, the runner on second bluffed like he was running and was way off second, the catcher threw the ball to second, it went into the outfield, and the runner on 3rd and 2nd both scored to end the game.

Was it a base running error and Millsaps got very lucky or was it a designed play trying to get a rundown going between 2nd and 3rd while the runner on 3rd scores and sends the game to extra innings?  I'm not sure.  I can't remember what the runner on 2nd did when the throw came to second and if that runner was trying to get back to the bag or playing for the rundown.  Either way, Millsaps was one pitch away from the end of their season and now they are still alive.

In a coaching decision that proved to be 100% correct, Coach Page brought in Travis Bogue in relief today.  Millsaps was trailing 5-0 at the time and Bogue shut out Rhodes the rest of the way.  Who will start for Millsaps tomorrow is an interesting question.  Three potential starter pitched in game 1 and the other two starters pitched today.  I could see Tait Hendrix coming back to pitch and I could see Drew Maddox starting the game instead of coming out of the bull pen.  

One note from the game is that Millsaps senior Hunter Abrams had a huge day with 4 hits, starting off with a 2-run homer that got Millsaps on the board and ending with a single in the bottom of the 9th as he eventually came around as the tieing run.  The 4 hits tie him with Stuart Phillips at 228 career hits, second on the Millsaps list and behind Jason Hadley's 1st place total of 236 hits.  I'd love to see Hunter break that tie in tomorrow's game and then break the record at the SCAC Tournament.