BB: SCAC: Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference

[frank_ezelle]

OshDude--That's the page I was trying to find with no success.  Thanks for the link.

[Ralph Turner]

If anyone will have something like that, it'll be Ralph.

Two weeks until the first regional rankings for 2010, or three?  

April 29th.   

[historymajor]

Dr. Ralph,,, you gonna see the TU-AC series this weekend in Sherman???  It'll be webcast!

[Ralph Turner]

Dr. Ralph,,, you gonna see the TU-AC series this weekend in Sherman???  It'll be webcast!

I will be watching the McMurry webcast of the Horrid Pain DH in Abilene and following the ASC-West.

McMurry is 1 game out of first.

[frank_ezelle]

Millsaps wins two over Southwestern to officially qualify for the SCAC Tournament.  The first game was an odd one with the score being 2-2 going into the top of the 7th (in a game scheduled for 7).  Southwestern scored 3 to take a 5-2 lead and Millsaps came back with a combination of hits, walks and hbp to score 4 and take the victory.  I believe the last 3 Millsaps batters got on by hbp, walk and walk.

In the second game which just ended Southwestern turned a big Millsaps lead into a close game.  I believe the final was 16-13.  Most of my time today was spent at softball (Millsaps and Austin split a pair), so I don't have much in the way of details on the baseball.

I see that Trinity won at Austin so the Tigers are really keeping their at-large option in good shape, and Rhodes lost 2 at home to Birmingham which really hurts the at-large possibilities for the Lynxs.

[Bob_Lotts]

OU wins twice at Centre today to clinch a tournament spot. Hopefully box scores are posted soon.

[Ron Boerger]

Ben Klimesh moves to 6-0 after picking up the win at Austin, 8-2.  He allowed seven hits and two runs in eight innings of work, striking out six. 

[infielddad]

Trinity is pounding, just pounding the ball.
19-3 over Austin today.  They are doing this without Kyle Felix and Evan Jones has stepped up big time to carry the offense..
Evan Jones has been amazing.
3-3 today with 2 doubles and 1 HR along with 6 more RBI's.
I believe this is the 6th straight game in which Evan has hit a HR.
Over 30 games into the season and he is hitting almost .500.
On another positive, TU got what looks like a good start from Noah Solomon. If returns to 2009 form, he, Klimesh and Panozzo make them very deep and very tough, especially when you are scoring over 11 runs per game.

[frank_ezelle]

It would be hard to imagine Millsaps going to Trinity and winning 3 games for the outright SCAC West Championship.  It's going to take quite an effort to win 2 out of 3 and tie Trinity for the title.

Millsaps did get good starting pitching from Aaron Williams, Shelby Robertson, and Wes Perkins this past weekend.  Other pitchers are coming around and maybe things will all fall into place by this weekend or next.  Millsaps is most definitely a dangerous team in any game or two game series.  Things get a little more iffy when it's a three game series or a six team tournament, but that's true for a lot of teams. 

One big plus is that the team is scoring a lot lately with 122 runs over the last 10 games.  Jason Riggins has certainly added some pop to the lineup since getting his first start 9 games ago.  In 43 at bats on the season, Jason has 4 doubles, 3 triples, 5 home runs, and 23 rbi.  It has been a remarkable stretch of games and it seems like Tyler Berry has basically matched those numbers as well.*

This weekend's series with Trinity should be a great one.  Millsaps plays Belhaven Tuesday and Rhodes Wednesday.  The pitching choices for those games will be interesting and I suspect Millsaps will need a lot of runs to win these mid-week games.  While the chances of an at-large berth might not be great for Millsaps, the game with Rhodes is obviously the most important since Belhaven is an NAIA team.

*I did want to acknowledge the tremendous job Evan Jones is doing at Trinity this season, putting up similar numbers over the entire season.  The numbers over the first 32 games are amazing:  117 at bats, .487 BA, .586 OB%, 9 doubles, 2 triples, 12 home runs, and a .906 slugging percentage.  It might be a good idea to walk him every time even though Trinity has plenty of great hitters behind Evan in the lineup.

[Ron Boerger]

Should be a great series this weekend, Frank.  With the way both teams are pounding out hits and scoring, both need great efforts from their pitching along with good fielding to win.

Trinity has a couple of mid-week singles against ASC foes Schreiner (5-27/3-12, 8th ASC West; Tuesday, Kerrville) and Texas Lutheran (24-9/10-5, 2nd ASC West; Wednesday, SA).   The Tigers beat each team earlier in the season.

Infielddad, what's the story on Kyle Felix?

[frank_ezelle]

Ron--It seems to me that both Millsaps and Trinity would prefer to have their mid-week games flip-flopped.  That's especially true for Trinity which has a much better shot at receiving an at-large bid if needed.  With Millsaps, winning the Wednesday NCAA game is the more important than the NAIA game on Tuesday, and with Trinity, winning the Wednesday game with Texas Lutheran will be the most difficult of their two games.

Does either team use a pitcher Wednesday that they expect to use over the weekend?  If not, then Rhodes and Texas Lutheran are going to be tough teams to beat--though admittedly those teams will be saving pitchers for the weekend as well.

[frank_ezelle]

For those who are interested, here's the situation in the SCAC East. The schedule has the following 3-game series:

DePauw (7-5) at Centre (4-8)
Oglethorpe (7-5) hosting Birmingham Southern (11-1)
Rhodes (6-6) at Sewanee (1-11)

Pending a Centre sweep of DePauw, it looks like DePauw, Oglethorpe, and Rhodes are going to the SCAC Tournament.  The question is who will win the East:

--DePauw is in first and needs to win 2 out of 3 at Centre.  Two wins would put them at 9-6 and they hold the tiebreaker over Rhodes.

--OU is going to have trouble getting to 9 wins which means that they seem the most likely to end up as the 3rd seed in the SCAC East.

--Rhodes is probably going to 9-6 considering that Sewanee is on an 11-game losing streak during which they have given up 16+ runs per game (64 scored by DePauw last week).  

My guess is that the SCAC East seeding will end up being DePauw, Rhodes and Oglethorpe.  

[tigerfan_2001]

Should be a great series this weekend, Frank.  With the way both teams are pounding out hits and scoring, both need great efforts from their pitching along with good fielding to win.

Trinity has a couple of mid-week singles against ASC foes Schreiner (5-27/3-12, 8th ASC West; Tuesday, Kerrville) and Texas Lutheran (24-9/10-5, 2nd ASC West; Wednesday, SA).   The Tigers beat each team earlier in the season.

Infielddad, what's the story on Kyle Felix?

Felix broke a bone in his arm during the Hendrix Series.  Not sure how long he is out.  TU has a history of going with weekend guys for mid week games.  I wonder if that will be the case this week with Millsaps coming to town.  You have to think, with only 7 losses on the season, if TU can win 4, then even if they lose the tourney they would still be in the discussion for an at-large bid, having only 10 losses.

[frank_ezelle]

An unusual scheduling change for Millsaps with tonight's scheduled game against Belhaven being moved to Thursday.  Unless there are further changes, that means a game with Rhodes Wednesday evening, a 6pm game with Belhaven on Thursday, a 600 mile bus trip on Friday, and then the DH at Trinity Saturday followed by a single game on Sunday.  Those are going to be some tired players when the bus pulls into Jackson sometime Monday morning.

Obviously there is a reason behind this scheduling change but it is unfortunate.  Nine innings of pitching on a Tuesday game isn't really a factor for the weekend series that follows.  Nine innings of pitching on a Thursday against a very good NAIA team is a bit of a problem.  But, it's not like the game could be rescheduled for next week prior to the SCAC Tournament and I've never known of Millsaps having an official game after the SCAC Tournament, so as the coaches love to say, it is what it is.

[Bob_Lotts]

Frank,

The East is up for grabs. You have it a bit wrong with the current standings, OU is in first right now by virtue of taking 2 out of 3 from DePauw. They would be the #1 seed if the season ended today...but with BSC coming to town it will be tough  to hold on to the top spot. It is interesting that if all three schools end up with the same record what would be the seeding?

OU has the tiebreaker over DPU
DPU has it over Rhodes
Rhodes has it over OU

Honestly, there are so many scenerios here anything can happen.