BB: CCIW: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[thunder38]

Recent history favors Carthage in the Wheaton/Carthage series. Last year Wheaton just needed to win the series against the Red Men to get into the conference tournament and Carthage played spoiler by taking the first two games of the series. Two years ago Carthage swept the Thunder. If Wheaton drops game one on Friday, that's a ton of pressure to fall on the shoulders of the freshman Kauffman in game two of the series.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Certainly would've been a fun one to try to dissect if it came about Ypsi. The Wheaton victory also eliminates the possibility of a three-way tie for the fourth spot so we will have a nice easy boring head to head tiebreaker if we have one.

Actually, there could still be a 3-way tie for 3rd/4th: if NPU loses all three, NCC wins all 3, and either Wheaton or Carthage gets a sweep, there are three teams at 11-10.

If you are betting on this happening, I am NOT sponsoring you in Las Vegas.  Unless, of course, you turn out to be right!

[mr_b]

Certainly would've been a fun one to try to dissect if it came about Ypsi. The Wheaton victory also eliminates the possibility of a three-way tie for the fourth spot so we will have a nice easy boring head to head tiebreaker if we have one.

Actually, there could still be a 3-way tie for 3rd/4th: if NPU loses all three, NCC wins all 3, and either Wheaton or Carthage gets a sweep, there are three teams at 11-10.

If you are betting on this happening, I am NOT sponsoring you in Las Vegas.  Unless, of course, you turn out to be right!

If that happens, NCC is third and NPU is fourth: the Cardinals hold the tiebreaker over the Vikings, and the Vikings took 2 of 3 from both Carthage and Wheaton.

[cciwposter13]

But if wheaton sweeps they have head to head over ncc. How will that be decided?

[thunder38]

 Baseball
In case of a tie, the following will be used as a tiebreaker to seed the conference tournament:

1. Head-to-head competition (each team will be 1-1 against the other two teams in the tie)
2. Record versus the other CCIW tournament teams
3. Record against 5th place team to 8th place team until tie is broken.

Using the scenario provided by Mr. Ypsi of:
North Park gets swept
North Central and Wheaton or Carthage sweep

In that case I believe it would go to the record against IWU and Augie since they are the only two locks.

Carthage is 0-6
Wheaton is 1-5
North Central is 1-5
North Park would be 1-5 due to the sweep setting up this situation

So if it comes down to the three-way between Wheaton/North Central/North Park, Carthage is the 6th place team:
Wheaton would have been 3-0 against Carthage due to a necessary sweep to set up the scenario
North Central is 2-1 against Carthage
North Park is 2-1 against Carthage

Thus, Wheaton would come out of the tiebreaker and North Central would get the head to head over North Park. Wheaton would then get the #3 based on head to head with North Central.

HOWEVER:
If Carthage sweeps instead of Wheaton, they would be out of the three-way tie right away because they're 0-6 against IWU and Augie. Thus, North Central would get the #3 and North Park would get the #4

[Mr. Ypsi]

Wheaton 6, Carthage 1 - final from Kenosha.

IWU and NPU tied up at 6, w/ one out in the bottom of the 7th (NPU batting).

The only two conference games today.

[Mr. Ypsi]

IWU got 1 in the top of the 8th, and Tim Coonan hit a grand slam in the top of the 9th, to lead 11-6.  But the Vikes are not going quietly - they have runners at the corners with 1 out.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Titans take game one, 11-8.  Matt Hart went the distance for IWU, despite yielding 18 hits and 8 runs (all earned).  Perhaps the key play of the game (aside from Coonan's grand slam) was in the bottom of the 9th: with the lead cut to 4, Dan Sabin (4 for 4, including a HR, to that point) was at bat with one out and runners at second and third - Hart struck him out.  Hart was far from great (or even good) today, but what a gutty performance!  (Each team had 18 hits, and 17 of the 18 starters had at least one - not exactly a pitchers' duel! )

Carthage is on life support after their loss - they would have to sweep the DH at Wheaton tomorrow, AND get some help from Elmhurst vs. NCC.

If NPU wins at least one tomorrow (I think they will), they will almost certainly finish as the 3rd seed.  Augie has the tie-break on them, so even if NPU wins both tomorrow, the West Vikings would have to get swept this weekend by Millikin (yeah, right!) for the East Vikings to move up to 2nd.  The fourth team is now almost certainly (NOT guaranteed, but highly likely) between Wheaton and NCC - and Wheaton has the tie-break.

[BigPoppa]

Missing the CCIW tourney in back-to-back seasons hurts my Carthage heart. Never thought I'd see the day...

[Gregory Sager]

Today was kind of the season in a nutshell for NPU. It's been one step forward, one step back for the Vikings all spring. Bad enough to lose Nick Soldano and Merrick McGrady for the year, plus two starting position players, all due to arm injuries (although Dan Sabin's been able to come back and DH this week). But, injuries aside, the Vikings just haven't looked like the team that won the last two CCIW titles. And it's been a total team affair. When the pitching is there, the hitting isn't. When the hitting is there, the pitching isn't. And the fielding and baserunning have been off all year, too.

Today was a case in point. The Vikings didn't pitch well, but they did hit well enough to keep themselves in the game. But they shot themselves in the foot in the field with a couple of physical errors and several mental errors -- the most catastrophic being the ninth-inning inside-the-park Wesleyan grand slam that should've been a one-run single, had the NPU leftfielder not chosen to try to make a highlight-reel play by attempting a sliding catch of a line drive dropping in front of him rather than playing it on one hop. Instead, the ball got past him and went to the wall, and a ninth inning that should've ended 8-8 instead resulted in an 11-8 loss. But that was not the only misplay; the Vikings also had their catcher drop the ball on what would've otherwise been an easy tagout at home, a five-foot toss at the bag at second was thrown away for an error, a throw to third that should've had a Titans runner tagged out was instead thrown too wide to result in a timely tag. And on, and on.

It's been that kind of a year for the Vikings. They look great one day, dicey the next. I keep hoping that they'll catch fire and string together a bunch of games at the end of the season that'll take advantage of all of the talent that's there on that roster, but they're running out of time.

[Gregory Sager]

Matt Hart went the distance for IWU

No, he didn't. John Munyon pitched the last three innings for Wesleyan. You should've been listening to the webcast, Chuck.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Matt Hart went the distance for IWU

No, he didn't. John Munyon pitched the last three innings for Wesleyan. You should've been listening to the webcast, Chuck.

Obviously!   The livestats (from NPU ) had Matt Hart still pitching right to the end!

[Gregory Sager]

Matt Hart went the distance for IWU

No, he didn't. John Munyon pitched the last three innings for Wesleyan. You should've been listening to the webcast, Chuck.

Obviously!   The livestats (from NPU ) had Matt Hart still pitching right to the end!

I don't know why Kevin did that. He was also the P.A. announcer, and he announced Munyon's entry into the game.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Today it IS a pitchers' duel in Chicago.  It is scoreless after 4 full innings.  Nick Vidas has yielded three singles; Jeff Johnson had a no hitter thru 3, was greeted by a lead off double (Sousanes) in the fourth, but never let him advance.

Carthage @ Wheaton just about to begin.  I've been unable to find any livestats for NCC @ Elmhurst - anyone know how to get them?

[Mr. Ypsi]

NPU took game one of the DH, 5-4, to clinch at least 3rd seed in the tourney.

Carthage came back from a 4-1 deficit to down Wheaton, 6-5.  The loser of the second game is out; the winner awaits the results of NCC's games.

The CCIW website reports NCC beat Elmhurst in game one, 3-2.