BB: SCAC: Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference

[frank_ezelle]

Lou, it's very odd that the SCAC West will be at the halfway point of their season while this is the opening weekend for the East and as you pointed out, 2 of the teams won't get to start this weekend.

On the Western side, there are 3 very big games today.  While Millsaps looks to have a big lead, it's not really very big with a half season to go.  A Millsaps loss today combined with a Hendix sweep would leave those two teams seperated by a single game.

The records going into today are Millsaps at 8-1, Hendrix at 4-3, Trinity and Southwestern are tied at 3-4, and Austin is at 2-8.  With a bad stretch of games, Millsaps could fall out of the top 3 and with a good stretch of games Austin could move back into the top 3.  Barring those two things happening, that would leave Hendrix, Trinity and Southwestern battling for 2 spots in the SCAC Tournament. 

Hendrix winning a DH today would push them to 6-3 and drop Southwestern to 3-6.  Considering all the home games Hendrix has and the way they have recently played all of these top 20 teams so tough, that would almost drop Southwestern out of reach of both Millsaps and Hendrix.  While the Millsaps-Trinity single game is important, I sort of think the Southwestern-Hendrix DH is the key thing today.

[frank_ezelle]

Thought someone would have done a post on the Trinity 3-2 win over Millsaps.  Evan Bronson and Aaron Williams both went the distance in a game where pitching dominated hitting.  I'll write more on this game later but right now I'm trying to get photos from a JV baseball game done before going to bed.

Another score of importance today is that Southwestern won the opener 5-4 in Conway.  If memory serves me correct, that leaves Hendrix, Southwestern and Trinity all at 4-4 and it means Millsaps will end the day 2-up in the loss column regardless of what happens in the second game (SW is leading 3-1 with Hendrix batting in the bottom of the 4th).  There's still a lot of baseball to be played.

[frank_ezelle]

One more quick post and then others are going to have to pitch in:

First, the obvious:  This was a huge win for the Trinity team.  It's the kind of thing that can rally a team and turn things around after a very disappointing start considering the talent that is on the 2009 team.

Regarding Bronson pitching today instead of last night, despite what others wrote on this board I just couldn't see him not pitching against Millsaps.  Trinity plays in the SCAC West, not the Big East and you have to take care of business in your own neighborhood before setting out to conquer the world.  This win today was far bigger than a win over Notre Dame and you have to hand to Bronson for stepping up and making it happen along with some timely hitting by the Trinity batters.

Second, and the not so obvious:  This was a good loss for the Millsaps team.  They needed a loss and they needed someone to shut them down at the plate.  Granted, I was pulling for them to come away with a victory today and I wouldn't have been disappointed in the least if they had gotten to 20-1.  BUT, there comes a time when nothing destroys success like success.  If you have played sports and/or coached, then you know this to be true.

Part of me wanted the Majors at 20-1 and in the top 10, but there was another part of me thinking that this has been too easy, too early.  Coach Page knows a thing or three about hitting and I've heard him say on numerous occasions that the time to worry about a hitter is when they are having great success.  That's when they start trying to do too much and the swing falls apart--for me, I relate to this in golf.  As soon as I start hitting the ball well off the tee, I get away from what has created that success is an effort to hit the ball 20 yards farther.

One last thing about the loss that needs to be kept in mind.  While 19-2 looks great, it's important to remember that for all practical purposes, Millsaps has 4 regional losses.  The two on the books already and the two they will get at the SCAC Tournament if they don't get the AQ.  When you consider that Millsaps is the only SCAC West team over .500 which hurts the quality of win numbers, I can't seeing Millsaps getting an at-large bid if they lose over 10 games.  In other words, there's not much room for slip-ups, but I guess there never was any room for slip-ups considering the difficulty of getting an at-large bid.

[tiger_fan2000]

After watching all 3 games this weekend, I hope the Tigers use this weekend as a spring board to the 2nd half of their season.  In the first game of the weekend, they looked horrible.  They didnt compete at all against Millspas who took it to the Tigers all game long. 

Then, behind first year Ben Klimesh, they started to play baseball.  They werent intimidated at all by Notre Dame.  That was huge for several reasons.  1) They needed to stop playing looking at last year and just compete.  They did and almost beat Notre Dame.  2)That is two very good starts for Klimesh.  Trinity desperately needs another arm to emerge, as they start 3 game series during conference. 

I was very curious to see if that confidence with which they played Notre Dame would show up today against Millsaps.  Bronson was the pitcher of old, attacking each and every hitter.  Williams did the same for the Majors and Trinity just got the key hit when it needed....something that had been lacking all year long.  Maybe TU can get it going and play like they should.....

[donotknowscac]

Since Rhodes came home from their successful Atlanta Swing earlier in the year they have played ten games and have a 4-6 record.  Unfortunately, all but one of these games was at home.
This weekend's series with DePauw started out well with Andy Holt winning an incredible pitchers duel over Gerlach.  It was one of the greatest pitching matchups I've ever seen.  Great job by Andy.
As great of a game that was, Rhodes followed it up with two nasty games.  They made at least 10 errors and uncountable mental errors in the next two losses.  It got so bad that in yesterday's game coach pulled ALL starters and replaced them in the middle of the game.  I've never seen that happen in baseball.
It has been a sudden change in events.  It is the same team that started off the year so well.  No injuries, no changes in the lineup.  Just a sudden loss of confidence.  The team now travels to FL and face Ripon and Stevens Pointe in their first two games.  No cupcakes there.
Although it is hard to determine with the way Rhodes is playing, it looks like DePauw has some good pitching to follow up Gerlach.

[frank_ezelle]

An interesting report on Rhodes, a team that started out strong and certainly pushed Millsaps to the limit back in early February.

It's interesting to see how teams deal with the spring break period.  Last week Trinity was loaded up with games, having 6 scheduled from Tuesday through Sunday.  Rhodes is going down to Florida and if I counted right, by this Saturday they will have played 13 games in 16 days. 

Millsaps is doing the opposite and taking a break during spring break.  They do have a game Tuesday  with Ill. Wesleyan, but the main activity of the week is the Spring Break baseball camp being run by the coaches and the players.  It has been 6 weeks since the start of the season and this seems like a good breather to take before going on to the second half of the season.  Also, there's something about watching the joy little kids have in playing a sport that reminds us all that while college baseball can be serious stuff, it also needs to retain the joy of playing.

The Millsaps game will be webcast tomorrow at 6 central.  The weather in Jackson should be very spring like, and former Millsaps SID Jeff Mitchell is going to fill in on the play-by-play.

[infielddad]

We are just back from our first weekend in SAT since 2005....and yesterday brought back great feelings about what happens when Millsaps and TU play and both compete.
As tiger_fan2000 posted, as bad as TU was on Saturday, it was hard to expect much against ND and then for them to come back Sunday.
The ND game was fun, exciting and a game they should have won.  ND starts and finishes with 2 lefties throwing upper 80's and the TU hitters had great AB's all night.
Against Tait Hendrix, a very good lefty, in the 83-84 range, well, he made it look easy on Saturday, and it was. Hard to figure the darn game of baseball.
During the ND game, I had the pleasure to chat with Coach Page and Coach McCain for about 30 minutes.  Even in the 3rd inning,  with the score 0-0, Coach Page believed TU would beat ND.  He  knew Sunday would be a battle with Bronson. 
We had a great visit and many laughs.  He told me about the impact of Nick Crawford's talk with his team just before the season.
We talked about the real importance of leadership and getting players to truly commit and buy in and how tough that is from season to season and sometimes game to game. Coach Page pinpointed players in his program and TU's that made those types of impact. It is interesting to hear  how leadership is so valued and how he can see when it is present and who captures it, even for an opponent.
It is clear it takes a very, very special person/player to assume that role in both programs. It is clear that special players just have the ability to "will" their team in a direction, and Millsaps and TU have been blessed with some, and not by accident, I don't believe.
Also got an update on Hunter Owens who is a wonderfully terrific player.  Coach is cautiously optimistic for him in the June draft. Some nice things are being said about Hunter by some scouts.  Coach Page and I both commented it only takes one to really like him. From what I saw over the weekend, he is a real player and mentally "manages" the game very well.
Then came Sunday and my first chance to see Evan Bronson.
What amazed me is how he pitches inside against metal bats. I have never seen a college pitcher, at any level, including the Pac10 command the inside part of the plate.  He just pounded the inside part of the plate with a very good slider under the hands.  After a shaky 6th when Millsaps got their 2, he got better.  By the 9th, he was unhittable.
I loved the match ups with he and Owen.  You could just feel the intensity rise in each AB and those two went after each other on a level much different than the rest of the weekend. For Evan and Hunter, it would be hard to imagine they won't be playing in July in some professional organization
Jordan Pennington had himself a weekend and Evan Jones HR yesterday was a huge AB.
TU has dug themselves a huge hole and they will need much more than Bronson to get them out. They cannot rely on last year and cannot even rely on yesterday, if they are to become the team the coaching staff recognizes they can be.
Klimesh started that rise against ND and hopefully it will give that freshman the confidence he needs, and others will step up like they did yesterday..
Finally, I am going to say that yesterday was the very best game I have seen Coach Scannell manage.   He was an emotional leader from the dugout.  He would not let his players take a rest, for even one out.
In my view, yesterday was a special day on the diamond in SAT.  Millsaps didn't lose.  They really battled.  Yesterday was one of those in baseball when you know you didn't lose, the other guy won.  Yesterday was 9 innings that brought back all the great things I loved about SCAC baseball, about Millsaps and their players, about Jim Page,  about TU, its players and Coach Scannell.
DIII baseball played at a high level is much more emotional, for me, than DI.  When kids want to compete and are fully committed to each other, you hear it from their dugout.  You see it on the field. 
With that said, let's also not forget the great pitching job by Aaron Williams of Millsaps.  He reminds me a lot of Doug Garner, the 2003 SCAC pitcher of the year.  You sure think you are going to hit him and then you have an 0-4 to show for it.

[frank_ezelle]

What a great post!  Thanks for taking the time to pass along those insights from the weekend.

As for Trinity, they are only in a large hole from the stand point of polls and an at-large bid.  They are only 2 back in the loss column from Millsaps so they still control their destiny in regards to winning the SCAC West and they are in great shape for going to the SCAC Tournament if they get pitching like that had this weekend.

I would very much like to see Millsaps win tomorrow against Ill. Wesleyan and get to 20-2 even though they is something about 19-3 that ties into a thought I've had for the last few weeks.  I'll write about that later in the week.  I hope some of you get a chance to catch the game on the Millsaps webcast at 6:00 Central (link is down below).

[frank_ezelle]

Rhodes rips Ripon 9-0!

I wonder how many hack writers have used some variation of Ripon and rips in a headline? 

It was a good start for Rhodes on their Florida trip as Colby Mattheson pitched a 9-inning shutout, allowing only 4 hits, giving up only 4 walks, and striking out an impressive 12 batters.  Not bad for a guy who had only pitched one inning all year!

[frank_ezelle]

There's no way to know who is reading the posts here on the message board, but I'm writing this post specifically for the Millsaps players and fans so I hope some of them are reading this board:

I've had an odd feeling about the Millsaps team since the start of the season.  In that first weekend when they swept LaGrange, Ozarks, and Rhodes, there was some intangible sense of team spirit that seemed stronger and more energetic than anything I had seen in the past at Millsaps. 

Given the loss of pitching from the 2008 season, I was impressed that the team won the 3 games on the opening weekend and extremely surprised when they were able to win 6 games in 6 days.  After a few weeks a thought struck me that hasn't gone away.  That feeling has actually gotten stronger and more accurate as the weeks have past--this 2009 Millsaps team is on the exact path of the 2007 Emory team that finished 2nd in the nation.  For example:

---The Emory team started the preseason at a respectable #19 in the polls.  Apparently the first regular season poll wasn't till the last week of March because on March 25 Emory was 19-3 and suddenly they jumped from #19 to #4.  Compare that to this Millsaps team which started the year in the receiving votes category and after compiling a 19-2 record they had moved all the way to #6 in the polls.

---The Emory team was one that seem to almost always find a way to win the close games.  After 22 games they were 19-3 with 7 of those wins coming by 1 run.  The Millsaps team is a little better with a 20-2 record and only 4 wins coming by 1 run.  The difference here is that the Millsaps losses have both been by a single run, while Emory had lost by 1-run, 5-runs, and 10-runs.  The 10-run loss, their worst loss of the season, came at the hands of Millsaps.

---When I look at the Emory stats for 2007 (http://www.go.emory.edu/Statistics/2006-07/Base/teamstat.htm) and the Millsaps stats in 2009 (http://www.gomajors.com/custompages/Baseball/09Baseball/stats/teamstat.htm), I see two teams that are fairly similar with neither having a strong edge over the other.  One would have to give the pitching edge to Emory at this point and the hitting edge to Millsaps with their higher slugging % and on-base %.  The teams are about equal in fielding.

HOWEVER, THEIR IS ONE BIG DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO TEAMS:  The 2007 Emory team kept it up for an entire season and the 2009 Millsaps team has only performed at this level for half a season.  Over the rest of the regular season after their 19-3 start, Emory compiled a 16-4 record and then they 4-1 at regionals and 4-2 at the World Series.  Impressive numbers indeed, but why can't Millsaps do the same?

Those of you who have followed the D3 boards closely might realize that while I'm a strong supporter of Millsaps, I try to write with my head instead of my heart.  That's one reason why I've waited till mid-season to write this even though I been thinking it for a couple of weeks.  I know that no one thought on February 1st that this Millsaps team could get to the World Series, and that's still a long way off, but I keep seeing things that make me think it is possible:

---The 2007 Millsaps team was every bit as good as Emory and Emory made it to the 2007 Championship game.
---The 2008 Millsaps team was every bit as good as Trinity and Trinity made it to the finals of the Western regionals.
---When I look at the 2007 and 2008 Millsaps teams, I don't see more talent than what I see in 2009.  Those teams didn't get into the NCAA Tournament, but with the right breaks that are needed in a regional tournament, I think they had the potential to win a regional.
---The 2006 Millsaps team was so close to going to the World Series and while my initial impression was that they had more talent than this 2009 team, I'm not so sure about that when I go back and look at the numbers.
---The 2009 Hendrix team went out to the West coast and while they didn't win a lot of games, they sure seemed competitive with the ranked teams in that area.  It's one more thing that makes me feel like Millsaps teams are competitive with top teams from other regions.

It just seems to me that the potential is there for this Millsaps team to go a very long way as long as they take that belief and use it as motivation to work harder instead of thinking they are good enough to slack off and still win.  I look forward to seeing how the rest of this season unfolds, starting with the 3-game series at Hendrix this weekend.

[HeadingForHome]

Oglethorpe beat Arcadia 12 to 1.   

Hoban pitched 8 innings giving up no earned runs and had 14k's !!!!!

Kennedy pitched the ninth and struck out 3 more guys. This isn't a misprint Oglethorpe's pitching struck out 17 guys tonight.

It is so nice to see the pitching at Oglethorpe to come around.

[Lou_Brown]

Oglethorpe cruised to a 13-1 victory today behind a fantastic pitching performance by sophomore transfer Mark Hoban. Hoban went 8 innings striking out 14 and gave up 0 earned runs. He gave up 3 consecutive hits to start the game then struck out the side to end the threat. He allowed 8 hits and zero walks.

Offensively the Petrels pounded out 15 hits including a grand slam by their freshmen 2B Jake Spear and freshmen catcher Adam Brazenas went 4-4 with 3 doubles. JJ Rizzo also had 3 hits.


Frank, nice post...interesting comparasion. I don't see a Jason Glushon type pitcher for Millsaps. That guy was lights out, and Ganzer wasn't too shabby either. Williams is good, but not at the level of Glushon.Nonethless Millsaps has a chance at getting to the level of the 2007 emory team, I do think that Millsaps playing in a "real" conference hurts them. The SCAC tournament will not be easy this year...never is.

[Lou_Brown]

Sorry for the repeat info...Headingforhome beat me to the punch as I was typing...

[HeadingForHome]

Sorry about that Lou as you information was much more in depth than mine.  The score was indeed 13 to 1 like you reported. 

[frank_ezelle]

Frank, nice post...interesting comparasion. I don't see a Jason Glushon type pitcher for Millsaps. That guy was lights out, and Ganzer wasn't too shabby either. Williams is good, but not at the level of Glushon.Nonethless Millsaps has a chance at getting to the level of the 2007 emory team, I do think that Millsaps playing in a "real" conference hurts them. The SCAC tournament will not be easy this year...never is.

Lou, that's a very valid point about Glushon and Ganzer.  It really helps to have two ace pitchers which is what Millsaps had in 2006 with John Fox (9-0) and Todd Kindler (10-3).  In 2007 Glushon held Millsaps to 4 hits and 1 run in 8 innings.  Ian Ganzer didn't have the same success, giving up 5 runs and 6 hits in 2 innings.

I'm more familiar with Fox and Kindler and I do think that Aaron Williams and Tait Hendrix match up with those two very well.  Every guy at this level really wants to win, but occasionally you see the players that go beyond the norm in the way that they really hate to lose.  I don't know much of anything about pitching, but seeing Aaron Williams compete on the mound reminds me so much of John Fox and that's a guy who really hated to lose.

As for Tait and Todd Kindler, that's a hard comparison to make because of the difference in consistency.  Todd was going to be very good every start.  Tait can be extremely good or he can drive you nuts with the walks.  I have a theory that Tait is a better pitcher when both his walks and strikeouts go down because I think the two are tied together.  When he's throwing the ball just off the plate, both numbers go up, when he brings it in just a couple of inches so hitters are putting more balls in play but having to hit balls in difficult areas of the strike zone, both numbers go down.  When both numbers are down, I think Tait is as good as any pitcher in the SCAC.

Beyond those two, Millsaps still needs to find a consistent 3rd starter.  I think they are good with the relief pitching with Drew Maddox and Boomer Hudson, but they need to find one more guy in that area as well.  All in all, I think the potential is there for Millsaps to have the pitching staff needed to get to the World Series.  It's going to be crucial that certains things solidify over this second half to change that potential to reality.  At least that's my humble opinion of how things look this season, but keep in mind that I know a lot more about photography than baseball.