BB: MIAC: Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[sumander]

J's sweep the Cobbers 10-1;7-3. They must have caught the bottom part of the Cobbers rotation

[Gustie13]

Unfortunately, I don't think there is much of a top end of the Concordia rotation.

GAC sweeps MAC, Aug sweeps SJU, StO sweep Car, and the rumor mill has it that USt lost at least one and maybe 2 to HU.

I'm working on an all-conf team...

[Gustie13]

I also must strongly disagree with the Midwest rankings that put UWW ahead of GAC. Gac swept UWW in AZ, has a better overall record (17-9 vs 14-11-1) and better conf record (11-3 vs 7-6-1).

My midwest rankings would be:
St Olaf (miac)
UW Oshkosh (wiac)
UW Stevens Point (wiac)
St Thomas (miac)
St Scholastica (umac)
Gustavus (miac)
Ripon (midwest)

[TommieHoops4Life]

Mathison was done after 2/3 of an inning because of a strained elbow in his pitching arm. He didn't play against Carleton today, but the hope is that he can come back and play Saturday at shortstop against St. Thomas. The thought process is that he might take some time away from the mound so he can focus on playing infield and hitting, at least that's what his dad told me.

Something called Alex Beckman throws a 2-hit shutout against the Knights today as the Oles sweep Carleton 2-0 and 11-5. Game two was 11-2 Oles until the seventh. Jones hit a two-run bomb to left and Schmiesing was 3-for-3 with a double and three runs scored. The Oles don't have a weak spot in their lineup and their pitching is solid enough to run away with the MIAC. UST will be the biggest test.

[texillini]

Not sure if I agree with the outlook for Mathison.  The Ole's need Todd to pitch.  They don't lose much with Maus at short either defensively or offensively.  I'm hopeful that Todd does not go back to short so that he can focus on pitching in the playoffs.  With him pitching the Ole's have a real shot at getting to the World Series.  Without......I'm not so sure.  Alex Beckman was impressive in yesterday's game against Carleton.  He pitched a two-hit shutout, his pitches were consistently down, and he mixed his speeds up well.  Two points to consider, Carleton is not Gustavus and the umpire had a low strike zone.  On another point, Chris Terrazas, two time all-MIAC and all region player, rolled his ankle in the third inning.  He played a few more but had to be pulled in the 6th when the game was in hand.  It will hurt tremendously if Chris, a pure fastball hitter, is not in the lineup against UST this weekend.

[sumander]

Despite getting swept by Auggie Tech it appears SJU still controls it's own playoff destiny. The J's need to split their three remaining series(CAR,BET,MAC) to finish at 12-8. Auggie Tech would hold the tiebreaker on the J's so they need to go 5-1 in their remaining series (MAC,STOLAF,BET) to get to 12-8. I can't see that happening.

HAM can get to 11-9 and BET woudl have to go 6-0 against GAC,SJU,AUG to get their! Tha won't happen either.

For their effort it looks like they will probably end up with STOLAF in the playoffs!

[Pat Coleman]

St. Thomas wins the opener against St. Olaf. Believe Ryan told me it was 5-4.

[miacball]

Four playoff teams pretty much set by now unless Augsburg pulls off a miracle this next week and wins out and the Johnnies fall off. Augsburg failed to sweep Macalester by losing the second game 4-2; their offense is somewhat weak in my opinion.

[Gustie13]

Mac should have Kimble and Murrey available to throw against USt tomorrow, could pull off an upset.

After seeing the BU hitters Saturday in person I can't believe they're only 7-9 in conf. The wind was blowing out, but they seemed to hit everything hard. Their games against SJU will be huge for the Johnnies and Auggies.

StO @ St Scholastica today. I can't imagine mcdonald pitchs anyone all that good with DHs against Aug and GAC coming up and the #1 seed on the line. CSS will probably sweep or at least split and end up 9-2 or 8-3 against the MIAC.

Mathison still hasn't played since 4/21 (Josh Maus is 9-20 in that span so mcdonald hasn't had to play Mathison at SS) and Johnson was roughed up against USt. They're dh against GAC 5/5 should be good.

[sumander]

Gustie, Don't disagree that the JSU BET series will be big, but J's still control their own destiny. They have two with MAC after the BET series. MAC has 2 with UST prior to that series. My guess is the J's will catch the bottom of the MAC rotation. Even if the J's go 1-3 in that stretch, Auggie Tech has to go 3-1 against BET and Stolaf!

[Gustie13]

completely agree. I wasn't predicting Aug would beat out SJU for a playoff spot, I was just saying that without a BU sweep of SJU Aug could kiss their postseason hopes goodbye, so its huge in the sense that SJU can basically clinch.

CSS splits with StO and the dh only goes to further my belief that scholastica should be severly handicapped when being considered for an at large berth to Regionals because of their extreme advantage playing in the UMAC.
StO threw no one better than their #4/5 pitcher Alex Sommer because they just played USt and have 4 MIAC games coming up but CSS throws 4 of its top 5 guys because they were able to throw their lesser pitcher against Martin Luther and Northland (combined records: 11-44). StO touched up CSS ace Moriarty for 5 er in 4 innings.
CSS beat up on my Gusties, I won't deny that. But you can tell what Coach Carroll thought of the games by throwing 5 freshman pitchers who he's felt confident enough to pitch all of 5 combined MIAC innings. Coach Baggs? He threw his #2 and #3. Yes, I know the scores were lopsided, but its pretty hard to put up much of a fight when the scores of the 2 games were 12-1 and 7-0 after 4 innings.
Bethany played at GAC Sunday and earned the split and I give them credit for that. Bethany also beat CSS this year (their 3rd conf loss in 10 seasons) so they're a good squad and I hope they beat CSS in the UMAC tourney.
But anyone that thinks from looking at CSS's record against the MIAC this year (8-3) that they would be the best team in the conf is just plain stupid.

[AO]

How can you not make a pretty good argument that Scholastica is just as good as St. Olaf or anybody else at the top of the MIAC when you look at the scores of the games?  I don't care who's pitching, they split with the oles and swept the gusties.  Last time I checked, the win/loss column was more important than a particular name in the box score.

By the way, perhaps the UMAC isn't quite as easy for Scholastica to breeze through as Northwestern, who is currently in fourth place in the UMAC, swept Bethel at Hargis this afternoon.  I'd give the Johnnies the mental and physical edge due to these losses today, but I don't think you can bet against Kirby hitting a couple over the fence.

[miacball]

I don't think the Johnnies winning 2 games against both Bethel and Macalester will be as easy as everyone here makes it out to be. Bethel can give anyone a run for their money any given day with the capabilities their offense has. It just depends which end of the Bethel rotation SJU gets and where SJU allots their rotation. I'd imagine they would probably go with their top end of the rotation against Bethel to slow down their offense and take their chances with Macalester's weaker hitting. Even so, Bethel's proven that they can hit any pitcher on any given day.
With that being said however, Macalester won't be a cakewalk for SJU either. Kimble pitched this past weekend and this monday against the Cobbers and I don't know if the Mac coach really wants to throw their ace Murrey out on 2-3 days rest against the Tommies. I think it's very possible that SJU gets the 1-2 of Mac on Saturday; which if that's the case, SJU could be looking at a split or even a sweep if they pitch their lesser pitchers.

However, Augsburg still needs to make things happen. Taken two from Bethel would be hard enough; but earning a split against St. Olaf to go 3-1 on the week and banking on the Johnnies to fall off? Sounds a little farfetched. I think the four teams are already set, with seeding being the only issue now.

[Gustie13]

With SJU at 11-5 and Aug at 8-8 the auggies need to go at least 3-1 but more likely 4-0 against StO and BU and I just don't see that happening.
I don't think the Johnnies will have an easy go of it, especially considering how good BU looked Saturday, but I don't see them going 0-4 either.

BU's starting pitchers yesterday were Charlie Zak (2-3, 6.93era) and Chris Nordell (0-2, 9.95era) who are their #5 and #6 pitchers while Northwestern threw 4 of their top 5 pitchers. How can you not pay attention to who is pitching? Its obvious that the MIAC teams can't throw their better pitchers in nonconference games and that the UMAC teams save their best guys to throw against the MIAC. Its a ridiculous comparison.
All the scores of the games prove is that CSS can hit the #5-#10 guys in GACs and StOs rotation. And if you want to look at records CSS is 3-6 against USt and StO in the past 2 years and their ace Moriarty is 1-3 in those games.

[AO]

The only pitcher with an era of under 6.95 and more than three innings of work that Bethel threw yesterday was Travis Adams.  Bethel pitched Buteyn in the eigth and he preceeded to give up three runs and the game.   In return, Northwestern did not throw their most successful pitcher, Andy Evensen, or Leif Borg, a guy who in his last start threw a complete game, two hitter.  After those two, there are no other pitchers on Northwestern's lineup. 

This game is won on offense as well as defense.  I think Bethel understands that pretty well as they seem very offensively oriented.  They also understand that they were swept by their rival down the road.  If you want to make yourself feel better about a loss, go ahead and say "so and so didn't pitch, it doesn't count", that's fine.  In the real world, it's still a loss.  You don't get a point in the standings for an overtime loss or an extra credit point for withholding your best pitcher.