BB: SCIAC: Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[SoCalSoxFan]

Two conference series this weekend:

Oxy vs WHittier:   I expect Oxy to sweep.  Whittier offense won't be strong enough to solve Oxy pitching.

CLU vs Redlands:  I expect CLU to win 2 or 3.   Friday's matchup of Peters (4-0m 1.53ERA) vs Minjarez (6-0, 2.74ERA) should be a good matchup.  I think Peters will win, with CLU offense being a tad better than Redlands.  I predict CLU will also win game 2.   Game 3 is a tossup.

[Jack Parkman]

Two conference series this weekend:

Oxy vs WHittier:   I expect Oxy to sweep.  Whittier offense won't be strong enough to solve Oxy pitching.

CLU vs Redlands:  I expect CLU to win 2 or 3.   Friday's matchup of Peters (4-0m 1.53ERA) vs Minjarez (6-0, 2.74ERA) should be a good matchup.  I think Peters will win, with CLU offense being a tad better than Redlands.  I predict CLU will also win game 2.   Game 3 is a tossup.

I am going to say Oxy wins 2 of 3 but Whittier finally puts together a solid weekend against an Oxy team that is very inconsistent. Oxy just doesn't seem to put it all together, but they have the ability to beat a good team.  I think their offense has been very streaky so far and DeRadd has cooled off a ton.  Kling has been so-so this year and overall they have dropped some games to some pretty bad teams.  We will see which Oxy squad shows up.

I will go with Cal Lu winning 2 of 3 as well.  Redlands has only won the 3rd game of the series once this year, but they haven't lost the Friday game either.  The Peters/Minjarez matchup should be a great one.  Redlands is coming off a solid 4-1 week where they beat 2 very average teams but put a whipping on Kean.  Cal Lu coming off a disaster of a trip to Arizona.  Losing the lead late against Linfield and then making 8 errors (seriously, 8??!!) while getting smoked by Southwestern.  Redland's can't afford to lose any more games in the SCIAC and Cal Lu could really help put a little more distance between them and 2nd place La Verne...or they could fall right back into the whole mess in the middle.  Should be fun. 

[SoCalSoxFan]

Two conference series this weekend:

Oxy vs WHittier:   I expect Oxy to sweep.  Whittier offense won't be strong enough to solve Oxy pitching.

CLU vs Redlands:  I expect CLU to win 2 or 3.   Friday's matchup of Peters (4-0m 1.53ERA) vs Minjarez (6-0, 2.74ERA) should be a good matchup.  I think Peters will win, with CLU offense being a tad better than Redlands.  I predict CLU will also win game 2.   Game 3 is a tossup.

Nice 5-4 win for CLU in 10 innings.  Minjarez went 7 2/3 giving up 4 runs, but striking out 10.  Peters went 9 and gave up 4 runs, 3 earned.
CLU won on a bases load walk off walk by their #8 hitter. 

Christ Conci led Redlands with 3 of their 7 hits; while CLU had 12 hits, with Abushala, Cohan and DuBois each with 2. 

Let's hope the Saturday games are as well played.   Of note was that the only errors of the game were 2 by CLU infielders.  They have 3 starting infielders out with injury and it's reflected in the decline of their fielding %. 

[CrashDavisD3]

Chapman has a run of 9-1 over the last 10 games and currently has the 3rd best overall winning % in SCIAC. Long shot to make the regionals in my opinion but it could get interesting with series still left with Pomona, Redlands, La Verne and Whittier.

[Teddy_Ballgame]

Impressive series victory for Redlands against CLU. Looks like a lot of parity at the top of the conference, as every SCIAC team has now dropped a series. There are already 6 SCIAC teams with 14 wins (shhh don't look at the other three teams).

That means there are going to be two very good teams who don't reach the conference tournament. I think it will be PP, Redlands, ULV, and CLU but as Crash pointed out, Chapman is playing very good ball right now. Even if they drop their final game against Fox today, taking 3 from a good NWC team is huge for the SCIAC and potential Pool C bids- especially given the conference losses to NWC teams earlier in the year. While Oxy has been the least impressive this year, they did take 2 of 3 from Chapman earlier this season so they definitely can't be counted out.

Shaping up for one of the most competitive SCIAC races in some time! Gotta love it.

http://thesciac.org/sports/bsb/2014-15/standings

[CrashDavisD3]

SCIAC will only get a Pool A bid.
Going to be a fight for the TOP 4 for the SCIAC tourney.

3 teams with horrible records in the SCIAC will make sure a 2nd SCIAC team will not make it to the Regional Tournament. Last year Chapman with 30 wins did not make it.

[Jack Parkman]

SCIAC will only get a Pool A bid.
Going to be a fight for the TOP 4 for the SCIAC tourney.

3 teams with horrible records in the SCIAC will make sure a 2nd SCIAC team will not make it to the Regional Tournament. Last year Chapman with 30 wins did not make it.

I think it's still too early to think that the SCIAC would be shut-out of a Pool C bid, but the teams at the top have to keep winning in case they do not win the SCIAC Tournament.

[Jack Parkman]

This weekend will be a make-or-break for a few teams.

Oxy gets into a very tough stretch in their schedule, starting with Pomona.  I have a hard time seeing Oxy win any of these games due to their offense.  They really have only beat 2 good teams (in my eyes) in Chapman and Redlands.  As I have said before, I don't look into the games against Eastern teams simply because they are coming out of the gym.  Losing to Drew, Newark and playing three 1-run games with Whittier doesn't make me a believer.  Pomona has been playing very well and I think that continues.

Chapman has been very hot lately and Redlands is coming off a huge series win against Cal Lu.  The biggest question is if Chapman's pitching can hold down the Redlands hitters?  Redlands have been lights-out on Friday's with Manjarez and this series should be an absolute battle.

Cal Lu can accept nothing less than a sweep this weekend against Whittier.  They have really struggled the past 2 weeks and need to get it corrected in a hurry.  As SoCalSoxFan mentioned earlier, the injuries have really hurt Cal Lu.  Again, make-of-break time for them.

HUGE series for Caltech and CMS.  Absolutely nothing against CMS but I would absolutely love to see Caltech take a game from them.

La Verne has Pacific who has had a rough year.

[Purple Heys]

Boy, that was tough to see...

[Purple Heys]

Whittier legitimately should could have swept that series...  (fixed it in fairness to Oxy, who legitimately swept the series)

[Purple Heys]

So that is the difference between 1st place and 1 step out of the cellar?  I'm not buying Oxy either, but hats off to them.

[Purplebaseball]

I agree PH....Oxy did not impress..Whittier should have won 3 this weekend.  Oxy offense except for Devon DeRaad who has ++ power did not impress.. We will see oxy does with this tough stretch of their schedule.

[Purple Heys]

Whittier legitimately should have swept that series...

That they did not, and Oxy won all 3, explains much of Whittier's season to date.  They had their chances to be a marginally .500 team this season.  It's tough to watch your team go through it, but at the same time, I hope it builds resolve to work harder now and moving forward.  Their are two teams out there that can still have their season spoiled and that sorta makes these playoffs.

[SoCalSoxFan]

My CLU picks last week were off for game 2.  I honestly didn't expect they would get shut down in game 2; but knew game 3 would be a toss-up.

Series this week:

Whittier at CLU:    I expect CLU will bounce back and sweep Whittier.  They need to get better pitching from their 3rd starter.  If they get back any of their 3 starters, then I expect their lineup will bounce back and be as consistent as it was earlier in the year.    They do have 4 hitters in top 11 of SCIAC (including Crowl at .476), but were shutout 2x in their 5 games last week (counting Sun in AZ). 
All this as a preamble to predict CLU 3-0.

Redlands at Chapman:  Hopefully Smith goes Friday against Minjarez... that will be as good a matchup as Minjarez vs Scott Peters last Friday.
As an aside, looking at the SCIAC stats I was surprised to see Redlands with 3 of the top batters in top 10.  Their team average has raised to very healthy .357
I think Minjarez will win at home Friday and then they split on Sat.   Redlands 2-1. 


PP at Oxy:  Oxy's #2 and #3 are having pretty good years; both only 1 loss and ERA's in the 2.9-3.5 range.  But, their #1 Kling, isn't matching their performance.  None of PP's starting pitchers have stats that can match the Oxy stats (although Miles was doing pretty decent until the LV game). 
With PP they'll win based on their offense, not pitching.     I think PP takes game 1 at home on Friday and split on Sat.  PP 2-1.
But, I reserve the right to change my mind and switch to Oxy 2-1, because Oxy just seems to keep finding a way to win.


CMS at Caltech:   I'm predicting CMS wins the series 2-1.  Hopefully CalTech beats MIT on Thurs in the meeting of the minds.

[108 Stitches]

  Hopefully CalTech beats MIT on Thurs in the meeting of the minds.

Not likely as MIT beat Chapman 8-2 last night.