BB: SCIAC: Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[Ralph Turner]

Infielddad is right.  +1! 

CSU-EB is moving to D-II.  This is the last season for them in D-III.

East Bay needs to schedule at least 50% of its games as in-region.

To be considered during the at-large selection process (Pools B or C), an institution must play at least 50 percent of its competition against Division III in-region opponents, unless a waiver has been approved by the Division III Championships Committee.

[Jack Parkman]

Here is the CSU East Bay schedule.

http://edschool.csueastbay.edu/departments/kpe/I.C.Sports/Baseball/schedule.htm

That looks like a great schedule!  Great mix of games with the SCIAC and the NWC.  Man this season must be costing them a fortune! 

[Ralph Turner]

Here is the CSU East Bay schedule.

http://edschool.csueastbay.edu/departments/kpe/I.C.Sports/Baseball/schedule.htm

That looks like a great schedule!  Great mix of games with the SCIAC and the NWC.  Man this season must be costing them a fortune! 

Jack, CSU-EB has only one plane flight, probably on Southwest Airlines to Seguin, TX.

We know that their travel budget should go down in D2 next year.

[Jack Parkman]

Ralph-  I was thinking more about the hotel rooms they will have to get.  A few trips to Oregon and a few down south will not be cheap.  I figure flying from Oakland to San Antonio would be the way to go and the Southwest web-site has those flights for a minimum of about $275.  Either way, D-II will help them out a lot in that sense.  I figure the only flight they would likely take is to Phoenix, AZ to play Grand Canyon.

[SCIACfan5]

I'm sure most saw this already:

Collegiate Baseball Newspaper's

NCAA Div. III Pre-Season Poll (As of Dec. 23)

www.baseballnews.com

Rank    School Name '08 Final Record Point Totals
1. Cortland St., NY 42-5 260
2. Chapman, CA 40-5 258
3. Adrian, MI 36-13 253
4. Kean, NJ 39-11 250
5. Southern Maine  36-14 247
6. Trinity, CT 45-1 245
7. Johns Hopkins, MD 42-8 242
8. Wooster, OH 36-11 239
9. Wisc.-Whitewater 42-10 236
10. Eastern Conn. St. 32-15 233
11. Salisbury, MD 41-4 232
12. Heidelberg, OH 41-10 229
13. Texas-Tyler 36-9 225
14. Lynchburg, VA 32-13 222
15. Marietta, OH 23-20 219
16. Illinois Wesleyan, IL 33-11 217
17. Linfield, OR 35-13 214
18. St. Scholastica, MN 35-6 211
19. Redlands, CA 27-13 208
20. La Verne, CA 26-16-1 206
21. Thiel, Pa 29-15 203
22. Rensselaer Poly. Inst., NY 36-12 201
23. Wheaton, IL 23-14 197
24. Rowan, NJ 34-14 195
25. St. Thomas, MN 34-9 194
26. Webster, MO 31-15 192
27. Piedmont, GA 34-14 189
28. Keene St., NH 34-11 186
29. Ithaca, NY 30-13 183
30. New Jersey 30-12 179

Other Top Teams: Carthage, WI (36-10), Wisc.-Oshkosh (29-11), Montclair St., NJ (28-20), Christopher Newport, VA (29-14), Pacific Lutheran, WA (24-14-2), Denison, OH (27-18), Wisc.-Stevens Point (29-16), Rose-Hulman, IN (32-15), Penn. St. Behrend, PA (34-12), Aurora, IL (25-15), Franklin, IN (26-14), McMurry, TX (29-19), William Paterson, NJ (23-19), St. Joseph's, NY (27-15-1), California Lutheran (19-18-2), Beloit, WI (18-16), Rochester, NY (28-13), Haverford, PA (27-14-1), Pomona-Pitzer, CA (27-13), St. Olaf, MN (28-12).
Source: Collegiate Baseball newspaper

http://www.baseballnews.com/polls/divIII/currentpolldiviii.htm

It's still too early to tell, but we have 4 teams on the list: #19 Redlands, #20 La Verne, and "other top teams" Cal Lutheran and Pomona-Pitzer.

Thoughts?

[Browneagle64]

No, but, Thanks for the Insight SCIAC5.

Glad to see several SCIAC teams representing in the top 25 Pre-Season Poll. (Especially SCIAC co-champ Chapman being at #2).  Although, these rankings are far more accurate then any of our fearless predictions, it good to see that two SCIAC teams can be seen as tough D3 opponents. Even though I would argue on my own behalf that the Leos are the far better b-ball team than the Pups, the voters understand that the Pups return a solid unit that did not lose a lot of starters from last years squad. If the Leos can find more pitchers as the season starts up, I can assure you that these guys will slowly claw their ways up the charts.
As for Pomona, they need pitching as well. Can't believe Cal Lu got some votes.

[Jack Parkman]

BE-  I am working on a little something that might help clear up some of the reasons why the SCIAC teams are getting soem pre-season love.

[Jack Parkman]

I will do my own little preview for each of the SCIAC teams that were getting attention in the polls and will start with Redlands.

Redlands is losing a lot less than I first thought they were, but the players they are losing made up a pretty big part of their team last year.  UR had a .363 AVG in '08 and were led by Brian Schumaker who hit .414 with 42 RBI.  Another guy with good offensive numbers is Billy Lavelle.  Lavelle hit .378 and stole 19 bases.  Other than those two, there are not many guys with a lot of at bats that are leaving.  Between Chase Beatty, Tom Ledda, Luke Wetmore, and Neil Muller, UR loses about 183 at bats from '08, with 91 of those by Beatty.

On the mound UR loses only two pitchers that started 18 games for them in '08.  The problem with that is the fact that they only had five guys start a game last year, and one of them only started one game.  Ryan Seifert was 3-4 with a 5.44 ERA in 6 starts and Mike McCarthy was 8-4 with a 4.57 ERA in 12 starts.  McCarthy would have figured to be one of their main guys again but he transfered to Cal State Bakersfield.

UR has some pretty solid numbers coming back offensively as well as on the mound.  Kyle Rizzo hit .411 with 14 sb's and 34 RBI in '08.  Corey Vane hit .388 with 28 sb's.  Matt Goldstein hit .386 with 14 doubles, and Jefre Johnson hit .372 with 34 RBI.

On the mound Nolan Nicholson went 12-2 with a 3.93 ERA in 14 starts and Michael Lessing went 3-1 with a 5.56 ERA in 6 starts.

I would say UR will be pretty good on the offensive side but their pitching has to be a huge question mark with McCarthy leaving.  Starting a guy on friday and bringing him back a day later out of the pen will catch up with the arms real quick.  Overall I think UR will be a team that will win some games but will lose some as well.  I look for a 2nd-3rd place finish for them.


* There is nothing scientific about this.  I just looked at the stats from last year and the roster from last year.

[Jack Parkman]

After the amazing response to my last preview (yes, I am being very sarcastic), I will take a look at The University of La Verne.

ULV is coming off of a SCIAC title and West Regional appearance.  ULV was led by their 3 main studs in the field and a pitching staff that was pretty much made up of 4-5 guys. 

Hitting

ULV is crushed by losing Jack Mehl, Scott Marcus and Trever Boucher.  These three accounted for a little over one-third of all at-bats in '08 for ULV.  This trio accounted for a combined .372 average, 20 home runs, 125 RBI and 33 stolen bases, which is exactly half of ULV's total.  Losing these three is huge and they will be very tough to replace.
In all, ULV is losing almost half of their at-bats from last year (45%).

There are not many hitters returning that really put up any kind of significant numbers.  Mike Moretti hit .354 in 130 at-bats with 3 home runs and 38 RBI.  Eddie Kalankiewicz was 22/66 on the year with 15 RBI.

ULV has some HUGE holes to fill this year.  ULV usually gets the best out of all of their players and this year they will need that to come true more than ever.

Pitching

On paper ULV is not the most impressive team around.  Three guys combined to start 39 of 43 games last year for ULV.  ULV will lose Ryan Rose who started 13 games in '08 and finished with a 7-4 record and a 6.44 ERA.  Jimmy Wilfong compiled a 6-2 record in 21 appearances (3 starts) and a very impressive 2.30 ERA.
In all, ULV will lose a combined record of 13-6 with a 4.49 ERA.

Coming back for ULV is the pretty solid duo of Jesse Sweet and Tim Jolly.  Sweet and Jolly combined for 26 starts and a 10-7 record.  Grant Wheatley is the only other pitcher that really had any impact in '08 finishing with a 2-2 record and 4.24 ERA.

All around I think ULV will be a decent team, but they will struggle with the loss of Mehl, Marcus and Boucher.  Losing those kind of numbers will hurt any team.  ULV is always capable of bringing in decent JC players and thats what I expect to happen in '09.  The guys they bring in better step it up in a big way in order for ULV to finish on top of the SCIAC again.

ULV's pitching is never very impressive numbers wise but they get the job done.  They lost a lot but have a lot coming back.  Jolly is one of the best pitchers in the SCIAC and he will need to carry this team in '09.

I look for ULV to finish anywhere between 2nd and 4th this year but depending on what they are bringing in, they could finish higher.

[Jack Parkman]

Pfh Pfh Pfh (Sound of me hitting my microphone)...Is this thing on?

[SCIACfan5]

I think you're pulling some great stuff Jack. Some of the research you're doing is very insightful and a bit more in depth than other previews. I'd like to see you do all the SCIAC teams (and Chapman) if possible.

[Jack Parkman]

Wow!  It seems I have a fan.  I will continue my previews later tonight and will be sure to include all SCIAC teams as well as Chapman.  Stay tuned.

[Jack Parkman]

I am not really sure why Cal Lutheran is getting some votes n the pre-season poll.  I say this due to the fact that they were barely over .500 last year and haven't been to relevant in the SCIAC for a while now.  Here is a look at what they have coming back and what they lost.

Offense

Looking at the roster on their web-site it seems Cal Lu will be bringing in a lot of new faces.  Some of the guys they have coming back have some pretty good numbers from last year.

Cal Lu should be led by Paul Hartman who hit .371 in '08 and led the team in ab's, runs, hits and had a .673 slugging %.  Hartman hit 11 hr's which is a good amount considering how big the Cal Lu field is.  Hartman had 11 doubles and 2 tripples during the '08 season.
David Iden is another guy that had a pretty good '08 season.  Iden hit .340 with 15 doubles and a very impressive 30/32 in stolen bases.  Iden sounds like a pretty good gap-hitter with great speed.

Other than those two listed above, Cal Lu doesn't seem to have much coming back.  Richard Michelin and Nick Pinneri hit .287 and .279 respectively.

The biggest loss is Trevor Davidson.  Davidson hit .341 with 11 doubles, 3 triples and 3 hr's.  Other than Davidson, Cal Lu lost a bunch of platoon players with average stats.

Pitching

Cal Lu returns its top 3 arms from last year.  Byron Minnich, Alex Casillas and Robby Seldon.  Those 3 combined to go 10-11 in '08 but were very tough down the stretch.  Minnich is only a sophomore and had a good 4-2 record as a freshman.  Casillas had a few games with a lot of strike outs, including a no-hitter against Menlo.
Cal Lu returns Peter Schmitt and Steven Omlor out of the bullpen.  These two combined for a 4-3 record in '08.

Overall Cal Lu looks like they will bring in a lot of guys in '09 (based on the size of the returning roster on their web-site).  I think Cal Lu has something to build on from last year after finishing the season on a good run after starting the season pretty poor.

[Jack Parkman]

Pomona-Pitzer had the SCIAC won towards the end of the season but dropped their final 6 SCIAC games to let the lead slip away.  P-P is bringing back a lot of talent which makes me believe they will win it all in '09.

Offense

P-P brings back the best hitter in the SCIAC in Drew Hedman.  Hedman had a monster season in '08 with a .380 average, 11 doubles, 18 hr's and 60 RBI.  Adding to this is Brandon Huerta who hit .379 with 16 doubles and 5 home runs.  James Kang hit .359 with 16 doubles and Zachary Mandelblatt hit .344 with 6 doubles and 6 hr's while spening time in the fielad and on the mound.

P-P loses Michael Jahanides who hit .364 with 12 doubles and 3 hr's.

Pitching

P-P brings back David Colvin who went 9-2 as a freshman with a 3.53 ERA.  Also back for P-P is Tom Church, 6-3 with a 4.02 ERA and Mandelblatt who was 5-6 with a 5.56 ERA.  Those 3 combined for 20 of P-P's 27 wins in '08.  I am sure all three of these guys will be better in '09 making them very tough to beat.

Like I sadi earlier, Pomona-Pitzer is loaded with returning players.  One thing that struck me was the fact that they onloy attempted 20 stolen bases which is a very low number in the aggressive SCIAC.  P-P choked down the stretch in '08 and I would look for them to be a lot more aggressive in '09 and build on the success they did have in '08.  My top picj for the SCIAC in '09.

[Jack Parkman]

Claremont is a team that I just dont understand.  They have a lot of good talent but seem to finish in the middle of the SCIAC every year.  Maybe '09 will be different with some key guys returning.

Offense

CMS has a lot of tallent returning and should be led again by Alex Weber-Shapiro, Travis Nishioka, Andrew Blomberg, Max Rose, Tim Ednoff and David Spiller.  These guys had a great year offensively hitting .464, .394, .389, .356, .344, and .335 respectively.  These guys comnied to hit 33 hr's, 85 doubles, and 17 triples. 
As a team CMS hit .342 in '08.  If these guys can put up these kind of numbers again it would help CMS a bunch.

Pitching

The CMS pitching killed them in '08.  CMS pitchers combined for a 6.51 ERA and only 16 wins.  Coming back for CMS is Ryan Kaup who was 2-2, Alex Sunderland who was 2-0, and Max Rose who was 4-5.  Those 3 comined for half of CMS' total wins in '08.  If CMS wants to make a push at the SCIAC title they will have to get better pitching. 

It is obvious CMS can hit but with the pitching they have, I don't see them making much noise in the SCIAC this year.