BB: SCAC: Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference

[Ralph Turner]

Millsaps fans, I think that the top spot in the South Region is yours to lose.  (Please remember that Trinity is in the West Region.)

[Ron Boerger]

Congrats to the Majors ... anytime anyone can take down a "top-ranked Emory" team in any sport I am all for it. 

Trinity takes two from Southwestern, 7-4 and 13-12 in 10.  Chuck Higgins pitched five innings to improve his record to 6-1 in the opener; first-year Evan Bronson, the sixth of seven Tiger pitchers to make an appearance, was credited with the win in the "nightcap."  Southwestern commited six errors as only seven TU runs were earned.

Trinity improves to 29-9, 16-4 while Southwestern drops to 12-24, 3-14.

[Pat Coleman]

Wish Emory's press releases would mention someone from the other team on occasion.

[historymajor]

TU completed a season sweep of Southwestern with 7-4 and 13-12 wins...

http://www.trinity.edu/departments/athletics/Baseball/statistics/su-tu4.htm

http://www.trinity.edu/departments/athletics/Baseball/Recaps/2006/TU-SU4.htm

http://www.trinity.edu/departments/athletics/Baseball/statistics/su-tu5.htm

http://www.trinity.edu/departments/athletics/Baseball/Recaps/2006/TU-SU5.htm

[consultant]

Pat,
I'm with you......

[frank_ezelle]

Both of the links to the Millsaps-Emory box scores pull up the Friday game.  Here's the link to the Saturday box score:
http://www.go.emory.edu/Statistics/Current/Base/eu35.htm

It is interesting to see that Millsaps had 6 players steal a base yesterday.  Millsaps players were also hit by pitches 4 times.  Crawford was hit twice which is not unexpected and Wetzel was hit once, which probably isn't unexpected considering the way he abused the Emory pitchers this week.  Emory used 6 pitchers but I can't tell if it was a designed "pitch by committee" since the first 3 pitchers gave up 8 runs in about 4 innings.

I should point out that Millsaps opens up this week with Monday and Tuesday games against a tough LaGrange team.  With Fox and Kindler out of the mix, I guess we'll see how the #3 and below pitchers can do against a NCAA Tournament caliber team.  These two games might be just as telling about Millsaps hopes for post season success as the two wins verses Emory.

[frank_ezelle]

Just out of curiosity, does anyone know the story on Southwestern's big decline this year?  I can understand that maybe a team would lose a lot of seniors and have to go through a rebuilding year, but 12-24 and 3-14 is quite a fall for a program that went 160-69 over the previous 5 years (40-11, 36-10, 28-18, 27-18, 29-12 from 2001 thru 2005).

[Ralph Turner]

Frank, let me start the speculation on Southwestern by analyzing the mid-week games that they played against ASC teams.

If we assume that the mid-week pitchers are the #3, #4, and middle relievers by committee, then Southwestern went 4-5 vs. the ASC, including some wins against very good teams, e.g., TLU twice and UT-D once plus HPU a mid level team in the ASC-West.  The losses were to UMHB twice, and the top level ASC-West teams McMurry, HSU and Concordia.

Southwestern picked up weekend DH sweeps vs. weaker West Region teams, Schreiner and UDallas.  A February 2-game Series vs. Austin College was canceled.

Going 8-5 vs. non-SCAC West Region teams helps get them to 11-20 in West Region games.  That helps the QOWI, only if they are not swept by Hendrix in the 3-game series.

Therefore, I would specualte that it was the starting pitching, especially the #1 and #2 pitchers were weaker, or they didn't have "a #1 and a #2" starting pticher, by West Regions standards.  And pitting a #3-caliber pitcher vs Trinity's or Millsaps' #1 does not portend for good outcomes.

[historymajor]

Just saw the news that Colorado College is joining the SCAC....  can anyone say "frequent-flier miles"?
Not sure whether baseball will be included... I know football will be... stay tuned

[consultant]

History,
Baseball won't be a factor for Colorado College because the school doesn't field a team.

[consultant]

Millsaps defeated LaGrange tonight 14-9.  No stats posted.  It will be interesting to see the new ABCA poll on Tuesday.

[frank_ezelle]

The Millsaps-LaGrange was scheduled for an 8 pm start and actually started late.  There were about 30 hits combined and the game ended at 11:20.

Millsaps went with Jay Hollenbeck, Brad Mizerany, and Brandon Ingram on the mound.  They will need to get some good innings from these guys in the coming weeks.  I'd love to see David Hutzel and Tait Hendrix gets some innings today but I think we'll see the regular weekend pitchers with John Fox starting.

I suspect that LaGrange was also using non-weekend pitchers last night.  Millsaps hammered the ball all night, scoring runs in each of the first 7 innings.  Justin Carter had a HR and Garner Wetzel had his 7th HR which I think equals his total from last season (more impressive than the HR was a rope Wetzel hit into the leftfield corner for a double).  Several Millsaps players hit the ball all the way to the fence and I think just about everyone had a hit.

This is just a general impression I have about the Millsaps hitting.  Going by the stats, they have hit well all year but their offense hasn't been consistent.  The most glaring example is the 17-3 win over Piedmont with all 17 runs coming in one inning.  At Emory last weekend Millsaps scored in 10 of their 18 at bats.  Last night they scored in 7 of their 8 at bats.  We'll see if it continues today and this weekend, but it seems to me that the Millsaps bats might be heating up with the weather.   

[consultant]

The latest ABCA poll is out and Millsaps is ranked 14th, while Trinity is ranked 11th. 

http://www.muhlenberg.edu/sports/abcapoll41806.pdf

[consultant]

The 14th ranked Millsaps Majors eased by LaGrange this afternoon 13-1.  No stats available yet.

[scaccommish]

Millsaps/LaGrange Boxes:

(4/17) http://www.scac-online.org/baseball/mc36.htm
(4/18) http://www.scac-online.org/baseball/mc37.htm