BB: SCAC: Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference

[frank_ezelle]

Trinity gets a paragraph in the D3 Baseball story today about Chapman being the favorite in the West:

http://www.d3baseball.com/notables/2007/02/15/Chapman+favored+to+repeat+in+the+West

[frank_ezelle]

Probably something of interest only to Millsaps fans, but the photos from the MC game on Tuesday are posted:

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v283/Millsaps_Majors/Baseball%202006-07/MS%20College%2002-13-07/

[FlightofthePetrel]

Oglethorpe improved to 4-0 today with a 1-0 win over Piedmont College.  John Hale picked up the win, improving to 2-0, going 8 strong innings and has still not given up an earned run in 14 innings.  Nick Greenfield earned the save and pitched a scoreless 9th after he replaced Hale after the first batter reached base.  Oglethorpe is off to one of the best starts in school history and will travel to Maryville this weekend for a double header as they look to eclipse the 5-0 mark and establish a new  record for best start in school history.  This will be the 3rd and 4th meetings of the year between the 2 schools as Oglethorpe swept Maryville just 6 days ago at home.   Good Luck guys. 

p.s. Bob- have you had a chance to make it to any games lately? - you've been kind of silent on the board.

[frank_ezelle]

Millsaps won 13-0 vs. Sewanee Saturday in Memphis.  Jay Hollenbeck was the winning pitcher and that's all I heard about the game.

Millsaps is playing Rhodes today (Sunday) at 2 but it looks like the game started a little late.  Last year's SCAC Pitcher-of-the-Year Robert Flanagan is pitching for Rhodes and Travis Bogue is the Millsaps starter in a battle of two big lefthanders.  Here's a link for livestats:  http://www.rhodes.edu/athletics/baseball/livestats/xlive.htm

[Ralph Turner]

UT-Dallas 4, Trinity 3 (10). Click for my game report.

Please scroll to post #248.  Thanks.

[frank_ezelle]

Millsaps also went down yesterday, losing 8-5 at Rhodes.  It sounds like Flanagan pitched great and he held Millsaps in check most of the way.  Just like last year, avoiding Rhodes in the first game of a tournament is a very good thing since you avoid Flanagan.  He will make Rhodes a tough draw in the 2 out of 3 crossover matchup.

Don't know what Rhodes has outside of Flanagan.  Hendrix beat Rhodes 6-5 on Saturday.  While it ended up meaning that Millsaps picked up a loss, I'm glad that Rhodes held out Flanagan until Sunday.  That's the kind of pitching Millsaps needs to see throughout the year if they want to do well in a regional.

[BigPoppa]

How do the SCAC standings look right now? Is it playing out as expected? Are there any surprises?

[frank_ezelle]

Big Poppa, it's way too early to tell.  Rhodes and Sewanee start off conference action on March 2nd.  Rhodes and Oglethorpe match up on March 9th.  Four more teams start SCAC play on the 16th of March and I think everyone is playing by March 23rd. 

Trinity and Millsaps both lost yesterday.  I think that leaves Millsaps at 4-1 with most if not all games being played in really cold, windy weather.  Millsaps plays Tuesday (vs. Belhaven), Thursday and Friday (vs. LaGrange), and Saturday and Sunday (vs. Piedmont) and that stretch should at least let us see some more of the pitching staff.

[historymajor]

Trinity only managed to win 1 out of 3 at UTD this weekend.  Trinity continually put themselves in a position to let some of the worst umpiring I have ever seen in D3 'call the game'.  Some of the calls even had UTD Comets fans burying their faces.  Lesson learned,,,, never put yourself in a position were you can let a call on the road beat you!

P.S.  Thanks to Ralph Turner for stopping by and chatting after game 3!!!

[BigPoppa]

Lesson learned,,,, never put yourself in a position were you can let a call on the road beat you!

A great lesson to learn. The ball has a funny way of making odd things happen.

[frank_ezelle]

Millsaps plays Piedmont on Saturday and Sunday this week.  Piedmont started 0-4 and got their first win on Saturday, handing #7 NC Wesleyan College their first defeat of the season.  NCWC had narrowly avoided their first loss of the season on Friday with Blake Rice beating LaGrange 3-2.  Millsaps will be playing LaGrange on Thursday and Friday.

The Friday thru Sunday games will be broadcast.  I'll post a link to those broadcast later in the week along with game times, etc.

[Bob_Lotts]

Interesting note about Millsaps playing LaGrange and Piedmont.........

Oglethorpe has beaten both of those teams already this year!! They beat LaGrange 10-7 in LaGrange on opening day, then beat Piedmont 1-0 a day before Piedmont beat NC Wesleyan....I was at the Piedmont game (only for a few innings because my feet were going numb) and Oglethorpe has a good baseball team...They have a decent pitching staff and pretty good team speed and defense. I'm not sure if it was the cold weather but they did not shown much at the plate. They should compete for a top 3 spot in the East.

[FlightofthePetrel]

Bob,

The pitching staff is young but the duo of Rivera and Hale have been tremendous so far.  I think once Greenfield and Tuttle get back to last year's form this team will have 4 legitimate starters to take into conference.

As far as offense goes, I believe the cold played a major part.  Their two losses this weekend came at Maryville where snow drifts came in and out and they couldn't muster much offense. 

When their offense is clicking   i.e. Lagrange and the 2nd game of the DH vs. Marville they can compete with the top of this league.

I see promise in two of this years transfers:  Llano and Rizzo who are both hitting well to start the season.  With the return of Ernst and Baker at the top and middle of the lineup this team will easily put up runs once the season heats up.

All in all  I'm going to one up you and say that this team will finish in the top 2 in the East, and I wouldn't be surprised if they won it. 

Also I must have just missed you at the Piedmont game, I got there at the 3rd inning, probably as you were leaving.   If you get a chance to see the games this weekend come say hey- I'll most likely be at the wall.

[DPU3619]

Man, you guys are killing me.  I come here every day and read these game recaps and stuff and I can't deal with it.  UT-Dallas and Trinity played 10 innings the other day?  Weird, 10.. that was the high temperature a couple days ago.  You've been playing for a month and we've still got six inches of snow on the ground. 

DePauw's supposed to open up this weekend, but I'm not sure that's actually going to happen.

[frank_ezelle]

DPU--Millsaps plays tonight against Belhaven College--expected high today is 68 but we may get some rain.  The rest of the week is better with sunny skies and 70+ degrees each day.  There's no question that the teams in the southern states benefit from a weather advantage.

Tonight's ball game will be broadcast.  Pregame starts at 5:45 central time with first pitch at 6:00 if the rain holds off.  I thought they were going to do 3 baseball games this weekend but now it looks like they will broadcast the basketball games.  Link to listen is:  http://www.espnradio1240.com/listenlive.php