BB: SCAC: Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference

[108 Stitches]

Nice observation Ron! Trinity lost 5-0 in a very flat game for the Tigers. Mostly due to not getting enough hits, but a few base running mistakes hurt them, and of course the wind howling in from left center. 2-3 balls that would have been extra base hits or HR's were knocked down by the wind. Live by the sword – die by the sword. The team only had two hits. The young announcer (Harrison Graham-an injured player who is a hoot) summed it up pretty well. " They are not playing a bad game just not a game with any emotion or fire"  Probably a good game for them to lose to get rid of that sense of invulnerability and a wake up call for them to get back at it this weekend for a conference series against Southwestern.

[Ron Boerger]

With the forecast being what it is, there may not be a series ... 80% chance of rain today in SA, 70% tonight, 90% tomorrow, 80% Saturday night.  Only a 40% chance Sunday, but hard to imagine the field will be playable if the expected heavy rain materializes. 

So far the rain has stayed north of SA (which is good, the lakes up there need it badly), but that's expected to change as the day wears on. 

[Bob_Lotts]

To 108Stiches: The split was very necessary because schools out East were tired of flying to Texas/Colorado twice a year. In baseball, how was the SCAC ever a real conference when when teams never played each other? How many times did Centre and Southwestern play in baseball in the 20 years of SCAC play? How about Oglethorpe and Hendrix? You can count the times on one hand...over 20 YEARS! The new alignment for the old SCAC east allows them to play 21 conference games, instead of 15 and they get to play every team every year. Now from a monetary issue it washes out for baseball or maybe costs those schools a bit more. But for the rest of the sports like football, basketball, soccer the will save money by eliminating ALL flights.

[infielddad]

To 108Stiches: The split was very necessary because schools out East were tired of flying to Texas/Colorado twice a year. In baseball, how was the SCAC ever a real conference when when teams never played each other? How many times did Centre and Southwestern play in baseball in the 20 years of SCAC play? How about Oglethorpe and Hendrix? You can count the times on one hand...over 20 YEARS! The new alignment for the old SCAC east allows them to play 21 conference games, instead of 15 and they get to play every team every year. Now from a monetary issue it washes out for baseball or maybe costs those schools a bit more. But for the rest of the sports like football, basketball, soccer the will save money by eliminating ALL flights.

Bob, by your reference to eliminating "ALL flights," are you suggesting, for instance, that Hendrix  and Millsaps will be on the bus to get to get their teams to St. Louis and Chicago in football?  Washington U and U of Chicago are both affiliated for football, I believe.
When we get to baseball, a few years back, when Hendrix was the SCAC tournament, posters on this board readily admitted the competitive level created by Coach Scannell  and Coach Page drove Hendrix to improve the program, which was near the bottom of all D3 in the early/mid 2000's and in total disarray.
Coach Cleanthes expressed similar sentiments as he became entrenched at Rhodes.
In my view, the split conference worked quite well in baseball. Schools like Sewanee and Centre likely would never have made the tournament had it been the top 6 teams with a full schedule for baseball. The split conference gave every school the chance to compete toward the SCAC tournament, even when the schools chose not to provide that level of commitment and support to improve the quality of the team.
This isn't going to change...but when the SAA added Washington University and the University of Chicago, it showed travel and expense and the impact on the student may have been the reason offered which clearly appears to be nothing more than an "excuse" in my opinion.

[OshDude]

A lot of people are very high on Piedmont this year, but I am not one of them. I think they are seeing what playing with a target on your back is like.

We'll see how the rest of the series plays out, but the win over Marietta had to sway you a bit, right?

[Ron Boerger]

http://trinitytigers.com/sports/bsb/index

Saturday's game between Trinity and Southwestern has been cancelled.  The two teams will attempt to play a doubleheader tomorrow (Sunday, 03/11), beginning at 3:00 p.m.

[108 Stitches]

I am going to hold off on my 1st place vote until Sunday eve to see how everyone does and to see if Trinity can bounce back from a lackadaisical performance on Thursday. Trinity has a couple of injuries, but good teams keep winning in spite of them and they need to get a little more consistent in their offense to be number 1. 

[Ron Boerger]

Trinity improves to 16-3 (5-0 SCAC) with a 5-1 win over visiting Southwestern (6-13, 2-3- SCAC) in seven innings.

Ben Klimesh (7-0) got the win, allowing only two hits (back-to-back doubles in the fourth), striking out 15, and walking none.   Christian Muscarello was 2-for-3 with 2 RBI.  Chris Webber (1-2) went the entire way for Southwestern, allowing nine hits, striking out five, allowing no walks but four earned runs.  The Pirates committed five errors to Trinity's one. 

There will be another game starting at 6:00pm.

[Ron Boerger]

They started at 5pm instead of 6.  Lucero got the start and after a Nick Pappas grand slam (and Will Donnan plating two with one of his own two batters later) Trinity leads 9-0 going into the top of the fifth.   

[Ralph Turner]

To 108Stiches: The split was very necessary because schools out East were tired of flying to Texas/Colorado twice a year. In baseball, how was the SCAC ever a real conference when when teams never played each other? How many times did Centre and Southwestern play in baseball in the 20 years of SCAC play? How about Oglethorpe and Hendrix? You can count the times on one hand...over 20 YEARS! The new alignment for the old SCAC east allows them to play 21 conference games, instead of 15 and they get to play every team every year. Now from a monetary issue it washes out for baseball or maybe costs those schools a bit more. But for the rest of the sports like football, basketball, soccer the will save money by eliminating ALL flights.

Bob, by your reference to eliminating "ALL flights," are you suggesting, for instance, that Hendrix  and Millsaps will be on the bus to get to get their teams to St. Louis and Chicago in football?  Washington U and U of Chicago are both affiliated for football, I believe.
When we get to baseball, a few years back, when Hendrix was the SCAC tournament, posters on this board readily admitted the competitive level created by Coach Scannell  and Coach Page drove Hendrix to improve the program, which was near the bottom of all D3 in the early/mid 2000's and in total disarray.
Coach Cleanthes expressed similar sentiments as he became entrenched at Rhodes.
In my view, the split conference worked quite well in baseball. Schools like Sewanee and Centre likely would never have made the tournament had it been the top 6 teams with a full schedule for baseball. The split conference gave every school the chance to compete toward the SCAC tournament, even when the schools chose not to provide that level of commitment and support to improve the quality of the team.
This isn't going to change...but when the SAA added Washington University and the University of Chicago, it showed travel and expense and the impact on the student may have been the reason offered which clearly appears to be nothing more than an "excuse" in my opinion.

Half of the issue with WashU and UChicago was trying to get something more than an 8-game schedule.  There are lots of open dates in there that are not easily filled once conferences start round robin play about week #3 (for a 9-10 team conference)  or week #5 for a 7 or 8-team conference.

Respectfully, please give me a mock 10-game SAA football schedule without Chicago and Wash U.  There just isn't anyone in that part of the country that matches the mission-and-vision component of the SAA.

It is either flying back to Texas for home-and-home games or scheduling your nearby NAIA school.
Huntingdon would love to fill the open dates. Better yet, Huntingdon would love to join the SAA!

[108 Stitches]

Trinity got their mojo back with a solid performance on Sunday. They clearly have the best team in the West and should cruise into the SCAC tournament with the number 1 seed from this side of the bracket, Hendrix and Dallas look to duke it out for the 2 and 3 seed spots, but Southwestern could get on a roll. 

The East is just getting started, but BSC looks like they are getting it together and justify their early ranking. Millsaps and Rhodes have struggled a bit lately. (not sure losing to Marietta is considered struggling, but the scores did not look close) Will be interesting to see how things start to fall into place in the East the next couple of weeks.

As far as the realignment, I am hoping the UofDallas can continue to develop into a strong program, Centenary can field a solid D3 team and Southwestern can get back to where they have been in the past, and TLU usually fields a strong team, so with these programs and Trinity the SCAC can develop into a pretty strong tight geographic conference. I am hoping there are enough games available for some good home/away OOC games like TU has with Chapman. A similar series with Millsaps or another strong team would be perfect for TU.

[BATR441]

To answer Ralph's question I looked at the Trinity site and they play two games on Sat, and a single game on Sunday. I am pretty sure they will be traveling by bus, which is about a 10HR trip. So they will likely leave early Friday morning, get in an afternoon practice Friday night, games on weekend, back on bus Sunday. Gives the student-athletes ample time to catch up on homework. 

The split was stupid IMO, and it hurts the Eastern schools much more than the Western schools, as they are already have in place what is needed to keep their AQ's in everything except football and this will get worked out in the next year.

stupid or not it's done and I (even though this is our last year) am happy to see it, while the  SCAC is a great conference it really was like 2 separate conferences I mean East never saw West until tournament time and then it was 4, until the decrease to 3, teams facing each other. JUST STUPID IN AND OF ITSELF!

[BATR441]

A lot of people are very high on Piedmont this year, but I am not one of them. I think they are seeing what playing with a target on your back is like.

We'll see how the rest of the series plays out, but the win over Marietta had to sway you a bit, right?

DIFFERNCE between last years Piedmont and this year "They don't beat themselves" and they never say die even when they lose a lead.

[108 Stitches]

Klimesh Named SCAC Pitcher of the Week

San Antonio - Trinity senior right-hander Ben Klimesh has been named the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference Pitcher of the Week for the second time this season.

Klimesh also earned the honor in the second week of the season, after pitching a shutout against Louisiana College.

This week featured another masterful performance by Klimesh, who sparked the Tigers to a doubleheader sweep of Southwestern on Sunday.

Klimesh struck out a career-high 15 batters in the complete-game victory over the Pirates, allowing one run on just two hits. His 15 strikeouts came in just seven innings of work, and he did not allow a walk.  It marks the fourth time this season that Klimesh has struck out 13 or more batters in a game.

His performance on Sunday moved Klimesh up to third on Trinity's career list for strikeouts, and he is nearing 300 for his career. He is also just 24 strikeouts from becoming the first player in school history to reach 100 strikeouts in more than one season.

For the season, Klimesh leads Trinity with a 7-0 record, striking out 76 batters in just 47 innings of work. He has yielded eight earned runs in seven appearances, posting an ERA of 1.53 this season.  Opponents are hitting .160 against Klimesh this year.

[108 Stitches]

Trinity beats Austin College 7-1, to go to 18-3 on the season. While not the prettiest game TU gets the W.  Klimesh gets 8th win with 14K's. Game was a lot closer than the score indicated as Trinity did not score until the 6th and was behind 0-1 from the 2nd  inning on. Austin junk ball pitchers kept Trinity hitters off balance until the 6th where they scored 3 runs, on no balls hit out of the infield batting around and left the bases loaded. They left the bases loaded to end the inning three times. Austin started 3-4 freshmen and while they may struggle this year they will be better for it in the coming years. Also unusual for Austin- they had 8 LH hitters in the lineup. 7-10-0 for Trinity, 1-5-2 for Austin. Second game of the series tomorrow.