BB: SCAC: Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference

[frank_ezelle]

Doc, thanks for that update.  That's good news for Rhodes getting such a strong performance out of Catalonotto and it will be interesting to see how Rhodes does with Emory.  Emory has a great record but they are a team that wins a lot of close games and low scoring games.  I could definitely see Holt and Flanagan holding down the Emory scoring and Rhodes winning both games.  The big problems is finding a way to score some runs against the Emory ace (Glushon is the pitcher's name I think).

[Spence]

Coach Jeff Cleanthes's Rhodes College Lynx beat tenth-ranked Washington University 8-3 this afternoon.  The Lynx will play two against highly-ranked Emory University on Sunday afternoon, with Andrew Holt and Robert Flanagan on the mound.

Chris Catalonotto shut down the Bears through six-plus innings today, and fielded his position brilliantly.  So did shortstop John Robert Bizzell, left fielder Richard Hurd, catcher Matt Beesley, and others.  Rhodes won the game on offense by playing superb small ball--indeed, during the first five innings they spun gold into straw by building a 3-0 lead with only one hit.

One quality of the Rhodes team that doesn't show up in the stats but is obvious to anyone who has seen the Lynx play this year: the constant and enthusiastic vocal support that the team on the field gets from the team in the dugout.  Juniors Matt Jack and Jeff Mueller, both of whom are significant contributors in their own right whenever they step into the lineup, consistently provide their teammates with energetic, articulate, and altogether positive support, as well as getting the rest of the dugout up and going whenever the opportunity arises.   Leadership comes in many forms--these two (and others) are leaders every time they put on their cleats.

Catalanotto may have pitched well (and has in other games against solid opponents), but Washington might be the most overrated team in the country.

0-3 against Emory, losses to Brandeis, Rhodes, Edgewood, split with DePauw. They simply have not beaten anyone and when they have played someone, they've lost except for the split against DePauw. Illinois Wesleyan is pretty much their last chance to get a quality win, not that it matters. With their schedule, their region and the system in place, they had a regional bid when the season started.

[Doc Nelson]

Let me see if I've got this right.

Rhodes is overrated because they play a weak schedule.

Rhodes handily defeated Washington University, the tenth-ranked team in the country, yesterday.

Washington University must be overrated.

Therefore, Rhodes is overrated because they play a weak schedule.

[Lynx Fan]

Go get him DOC.

I personally think every team benefits as the individual SCAC teams improve. This current roster of Rhodes players has done better than any Rhodes team in school history. Congratulations are in order.

After watching Ogelthorpe vs Rhodes I kept thinking how similar Ogelthorpe is now to the Rhodes team of 2 years ago. Best of luck to them as I think they will prove to be a formidable competitor sooner rather than later.

This new and improved Rhodes team is a result of good coaching, good recruiting and good attitude. A little respect would be nice rather than negative comments, but the world is unfortunately a predictable place.

Best of luck to all SCAC teams in the upcoming playoffs. I am looking forward to some really good baseball.

[Spence]

To clarify, my opinion on Washington has nothing to do with my opinion on Rhodes.

I thought Washington was overrated before they played Rhodes, and that result didn't do anything to change my mind. If Washington were in the South region, I would submit they'd be ranked about 8th, behind Rhodes and Averett. We also know that regional ranking is correlated with national ranking, so Washington's national ranking is purely a function of being in Central region and a combination of no one emerging in that region and having played more games than most teams in it to this point. I don't make judgments very often off just one game, unless that one game is the only data point. I haven't judged Washington off one game, nor Rhodes.

I think I've spoken pretty positively about Rhodes this year. I lost a little confidence in them when they only split with DePauw, but I still think they're pretty decent. They've got a chance to really help themselves against Emory. *REALLY* help themselves with a sweep; but even a split would help.

[frank_ezelle]

Spence is not afraid to say what he thinks as is evidenced by his -90 Karma rating.  In this case, he said what I was thinking but just didn't bother to write because I knew it would be taken as a knock on Rhodes and that would not be my intent.  I don't really think that was the intent of Spence either.

When the polls came out and I saw that Washington was #10 it made me go and look at their record.  The only reason I even noticed their ranking is because Brent Buffa transferred from Washington to Millsaps this year so I was surprised that they could lose their top pitcher and still be ranked so high.

I think most Rhodes fans would believe they would win a 3-game series with Washington, especially after yesterday.  Rhodes is ranked 30th and Washington is ranked 10th.  I think most Millsaps fans would believe they would win a 3-game series with Washington but Millsaps is only ranked 22nd.  Therefore, most Rhodes and Millsaps fans think that either their team should be in the top-10 in the nation or Washington is ranked too high.  That doesn't mean that Washington isn't a very good team, it just means that it is probably a real stretch to say that they are one of the 10 best teams in the country.

So I go back to my original assessment that it was a very good win for Rhodes that their #3 starter got a win over a very good team.  I also think they have a very good chance of winning both games with Emory if Holt and Flanagan are on their game and if the Rhodes hitters can scratch out 3 runs against Jason Glushon.

[frank_ezelle]

Spence got a post in while I was typing mine--I didn't bother to change mine up to reflect what he had just written, especially since we were on the same train of thought.

[frank_ezelle]

On another note, Trinity winning against SW in the nightcap yesterday has brought up some interesting things:

--It gives Millsaps a 2 game cushion in the loss column going into their DH with Hendrix today.  I like Millsaps chances of winning the SCAC West regular season outright but they still have to execute this afternoon.

--Austin and SW are now tied at 9-6.  Southwestern holds the tiebreaker over Austin (won the series 3-1) so a SW win today means that Austin could tie SW if they played the postponed game with Trinity but they couldn't get the 2nd seed.  If SW loses today, they could still get the 2nd seed if Trinity beats Austin.  The #2 seed plays Centre, the #3 seed plays DePauw in the crossover and that appears to be a significant difference.

[FlightofthePetrel]

The Stormy Petrels loose a heart breaker to Depauw 6-5 in 9 (of a 7 inning game).

OU came back to score 3 in the 5th and 2 in the 7th to send it to extras, but a walk- stolen base, error and fly out in the 9th secure the win for Depauw.  It was fun listening to the game to see the fight from the Petrels to come back late in the game.

[frank_ezelle]

Rhodes got roughed up pretty bad in the first game with Flanagan taking his first loss in a 14-3 game.  The game was scoreless after 4 innings, Emory got 3-1-3 runs in the 5th thru 7th and then 7 more runs in the 9th.  Flanagan gave up the first 7 and a reliever the last 7.

There's live stats on the game at:  http://www.rhodes.edu/athletics/baseball/livestats/xlive.htm

These will probably be wiped out shortly for the start of the second game.

Millsaps won 10-4 at Hendrix in the first game today giving them a guaranteed outright win of the SCAC West regular season.

[Doc Nelson]

Rhodes took two of three this weekend against No. 3 Emory and No. 10 Washington by winning the second game of today's double header with Emory, 8-3.  Sophomore Andrew Holt threw eight strong innings, and the Lynx overcame a 2-1 deficit by scoring five runs on two hits in the bottom of the fifth, taking advantage of every crack in Emory's armor. 

The two leading qualities that have marked the Rhodes team throughout this entire season are poise and resilience.  The Lynx have had bad days but have consistently kept them from turning into bad weeks.  Today, in fact, they were able to keep a bad morning from turning into a bad afternoon.  Thirty minutes after the end of a disastrous first game against Emory, which went from 3-3 after five innings to 3-14 by game's end, Rhodes returned to the diamond with remarkable confidence and dominated the team that had just dominated them.

[DPU3619]

OU took the nightcap 8-6 to split the 4 gamer. 

A 7 run second frame did in the Old Gold today.  HBP, BB, E1, HBP, 1B, 1B, 1B, 1B, 1B, 1B, GIDP, 4-3.

Kudos the Petrels.  Somebody said earlier in the week that they'd split the four gamer and I wasn't a believer.  They played well this weekend. 

[Baseball_fan]

I am in Memphis visiting some relatives, and went out to watch the Rhodes/Emory game.  Let me just say this, I want Rhodes to do well, as I want to see the SCAC East go far, but that first game was terrible.  Flanagan actually pitched very well, but Rhodes looked like a little league team with their heads cut off.  They could not field, throw or hit behind Flanagan.  It really was a pathetic game.  Rhodes had more errors than they did hits.  I think they made 7 errors today for something like 11 on the weekend.  No nationally ranked team should be doing that regardless. 

[Doc Nelson]

The test of a team is not that it never screw up.  The test of a team is what it does after it screws up.  Rhodes passed that test with flying colors today.

[Lynx Fan]

Mr Baseball Fan...did you care to comment on the Rhodes victory over Washington on Saturday or the night cap victory over Emory on Sunday? If Rhodes is a little league team with its head cut off what does that make # 10 and #3 in the country. In case you did not notice, Rhodes beat them.

Congrats to the Lynx on taking two of three from 2 top 10 ranked schools. Enjoy the victories but lets go to work on what went wrong during game two this weekend. If it had to happen , you picked a good time to get that out of your system.

You guys are well positioned for a strong run in to the playoffs. Your fans are proud of your accomplishments to date and expect nothing but the best from you going forward.