BB: CCIW: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[mr_b]

The 2023 All-CCIW Teams have been announced.  Congratulations to all of these student-athletes.

[cubs]

The 2023 All-CCIW Teams have been announced.  Congratulations to all of these student-athletes.

So when's the last time there wasn't a single player from Carthage on the All-CCIW team?   

[cubs]

Not much chat here in CCIW baseball, but I can't help but wonder what's going on in Kenosha?  The team hasn't won 20 games once over the past 4 non-covid seasons.  This season and the last two have produced 25 or more losses.  Since they went 31-12 in 2018, they are 60-101 (29-63 in CCIW).  What happened to the program?

They've stopped getting the Wisconsin kids from the Fox Valley to come to Kenosha and play baseball....  Some may think it's not that simple, but consider this:

When Carthage was competing for CCIW, Regional and World Series titles in the past, the entire lineup was from Wisconsin with just the occasional guy from Illinois.  Looking at their roster this year, they have 14 kids from Wisconsin and over half (8) of those are from Kenosha.  There isn't a single kid from north of Highway 21 (the Fox Valley) which used to be where they got the guys like Muthig, Everts, Winfield and Hallock that built the program into what it used to be.

I'll defer to BigPoppa on just about everything Carthage, but I don't think that it's a mere coincidence...

Here's the thing, though: East central Wisconsin is not the only place to find ballplayers. There is great baseball talent no matter where you look (although there's more of it in warmer climes than there is elsewhere, for obvious reasons). If one recruiting area dries up, there are plenty of others into which to tap. Heck, there really ought to be a larger recruiting footprint than one specific area if a team wants to be a national contender, anyway.

From what I've been told, Carthage's decline is directly tied to the departure of a certain assistant coach (can't remember his name) at some point in the past. It stands to reason that this assistant coach was the one with all of the connections in the Lake Winnebago region. It also makes one wonder just how much Augie Schmidt was directly involved in the recruiting process.

I doubt that anybody at Carthage is going to hustle Schmidt out the door, given the outstanding success Carthage has had over the long arc of his career and the fact that the Schmidt family is practically synonymous with Carthage baseball (as the name of the school's baseball stadium attests). But one wonders, given his age and the program's steep decline into the CCIW basement, how much longer he's going to hang around.

I'm not disagreeing with that! 

I guess the point I was trying to make was that when Carthage was competing at the National Level, they had a significant footprint in that area.  (Heck, when UWO was making their legendary run of Regional Championships and World Series appearances, it was rare to find even a single kid on the entire roster that wasn't from the state of Wisconsin. Compare that to when they took the field on Opening Day this year and their entire starting lineup was from Illinois!)

Anyway, Carthage was competing with pretty much UWO and nobody else for players in that area.  I don't think it's a coincidence that those players seem to be littering the rosters of Stevens Point and La Crosse now (instead of UWO and Carthage) and those schools have seen more success recently compared to the Titans and Redmen.

Now you have Carthage and UWO (and even Whitewater to a point) competing in Illinois for the same group of players that the rest of the CCIW schools were already recruiting over the years.  Obviously with interest from more schools, it makes it harder to get commitments from every kid versus when it's just between you and one other school.

They departure of an assistant with ties to that are would obviously make sense as to why kids from that area aren't on the roster anymore...

[mr_b]

The 2023 All-CCIW Teams have been announced.  Congratulations to all of these student-athletes.

So when's the last time there wasn't a single player from Carthage on the All-CCIW team?   

I took a few minutes to look through past All-CCIW teams, as far back as 1988 (no info available for the 1990 season).  In 1988, Carthage had no All-Conference honorees, a year in which the team finished 1-15 in CCIW play.  North Park and Elmhurst dominated the selections for that season (five each), but it appears there was only a single All-CCIW squad rather than first and second teams.  North Park finished first in the North, Elmhurst second, Carroll third, Wheaton fourth, and Carthage was fifth. 

Since 1988, Carthage has always had at least one selection every year -- first or second team -- till this season.

[mwunder]

I took a few minutes to look through past All-CCIW teams, as far back as 1988 (no info available for the 1990 season).  In 1988, Carthage had no All-Conference honorees, a year in which the team finished 1-15 in CCIW play.  North Park and Elmhurst dominated the selections for that season (five each), but it appears there was only a single All-CCIW squad rather than first and second teams.  North Park finished first in the North, Elmhurst second, Carroll third, Wheaton fourth, and Carthage was fifth. 

Since 1988, Carthage has always had at least one selection every year -- first or second team -- till this season.

mr_b is correct.  1988.  That was Augie's first season at Carthage.  In 1990, the year that was unavailable, Carthage had 5 first team selections and 3 second team / honorable mentions according to the Carthage archives.

[cubs]

The 2023 All-CCIW Teams have been announced.  Congratulations to all of these student-athletes.

So when's the last time there wasn't a single player from Carthage on the All-CCIW team?   

I took a few minutes to look through past All-CCIW teams, as far back as 1988 (no info available for the 1990 season).  In 1988, Carthage had no All-Conference honorees, a year in which the team finished 1-15 in CCIW play.  North Park and Elmhurst dominated the selections for that season (five each), but it appears there was only a single All-CCIW squad rather than first and second teams.  North Park finished first in the North, Elmhurst second, Carroll third, Wheaton fourth, and Carthage was fifth. 

Since 1988, Carthage has always had at least one selection every year -- first or second team -- till this season.

Nice work mr_b!!!

I figured it had been quite some time!

[mwunder]

Is Augie's live stream limited to that single camera?

[mr_b]

Is Augie's live stream limited to that single camera?

I believe so.  That's all I remember seeing from the DH between the east and west Vikings earlier in the season.

[Augie6]

I know there are not a lot of posters on this board, but can someone explain to me how Augie drops out of the Central Region rankings this week?  The are in the 1st set of rankings, are somehow 7th in the 2nd week and then drop out all together in week 3 of the rankings, despite winning the CCIW regular season by 4 games, finishing the year on a 16 game win streak, having the 2nd best record in the Central region behind Aurora, and being the 17th ranked team in the country in the D3baseball poll.  This seems extremely odd to me and really hard to understand. 

[mr_b]

I know there are not a lot of posters on this board, but can someone explain to me how Augie drops out of the Central Region rankings this week?  The are in the 1st set of rankings, are somehow 7th in the 2nd week and then drop out all together in week 3 of the rankings, despite winning the CCIW regular season by 4 games, finishing the year on a 16 game win streak, having the 2nd best record in the Central region behind Aurora, and being the 17th ranked team in the country in the D3baseball poll.  This seems extremely odd to me and really hard to understand.

I would have placed Augie 2nd in the region behind Aurora.  My only thought is that Augie's absence from the regional rankings was an oversight.

[mwunder]

I know there are not a lot of posters on this board, but can someone explain to me how Augie drops out of the Central Region rankings this week?  The are in the 1st set of rankings, are somehow 7th in the 2nd week and then drop out all together in week 3 of the rankings, despite winning the CCIW regular season by 4 games, finishing the year on a 16 game win streak, having the 2nd best record in the Central region behind Aurora, and being the 17th ranked team in the country in the D3baseball poll.  This seems extremely odd to me and really hard to understand.

305th in Regional strength of schedule (according to the link on D3baseball)

Aurora-149
Webster-103
Benedictine-110
North Central-93
Washington U-36
Spalding-195
MSOE-206

[mr_b]

I know there are not a lot of posters on this board, but can someone explain to me how Augie drops out of the Central Region rankings this week?  The are in the 1st set of rankings, are somehow 7th in the 2nd week and then drop out all together in week 3 of the rankings, despite winning the CCIW regular season by 4 games, finishing the year on a 16 game win streak, having the 2nd best record in the Central region behind Aurora, and being the 17th ranked team in the country in the D3baseball poll.  This seems extremely odd to me and really hard to understand.

305th in Regional strength of schedule (according to the link on D3baseball)

Aurora-149
Webster-103
Benedictine-110
North Central-93
Washington U-36
Spalding-195
MSOE-206

They must put a lot of weight on the SOS! 

[mwunder]

They must put a lot of weight on the SOS!

Yes they must, but only in certain instances.  Augustana does have 35 wins and has beaten 85% of their opponents, but they have some terrible losses and are 0-2 against regionally ranked opponents.  Eau Claire finished with 12 wins, and St. Olaf finished below .500.  They were also swept by North Central.

Records vs regionally ranked opponents.
Aurora 4-1
Webster 5-1
Benedictine 2-4 (loss head-to-head with NC)
North Central 1-2
Wash U 0-1
MSOE 1-3

Wash U's strength of schedule seems much more important that Augie's 10 more wins.  However, with Benedictine / North Central, the head to head win by NC AND NC's better strength of schedule don't seem to matter??  It's a head scratcher.

[mr_b]

They must put a lot of weight on the SOS!

Yes they must, but only in certain instances.  Augustana does have 35 wins and has beaten 85% of their opponents, but they have some terrible losses and are 0-2 against regionally ranked opponents.  Eau Claire finished with 12 wins, and St. Olaf finished below .500.  They were also swept by North Central.

Records vs regionally ranked opponents.
Aurora 4-1
Webster 5-1
Benedictine 2-4 (loss head-to-head with NC)
North Central 1-2
Wash U 0-1
MSOE 1-3

Wash U's strength of schedule seems much more important that Augie's 10 more wins.  However, with Benedictine / North Central, the head to head win by NC AND NC's better strength of schedule don't seem to matter??  It's a head scratcher.

Thanks for that info. 

[Jack Parkman]

They must put a lot of weight on the SOS!

Yes they must, but only in certain instances.  Augustana does have 35 wins and has beaten 85% of their opponents, but they have some terrible losses and are 0-2 against regionally ranked opponents.  Eau Claire finished with 12 wins, and St. Olaf finished below .500.  They were also swept by North Central.

Records vs regionally ranked opponents.
Aurora 4-1
Webster 5-1
Benedictine 2-4 (loss head-to-head with NC)
North Central 1-2
Wash U 0-1
MSOE 1-3

Wash U's strength of schedule seems much more important that Augie's 10 more wins.  However, with Benedictine / North Central, the head to head win by NC AND NC's better strength of schedule don't seem to matter??  It's a head scratcher.

Wouldn't Webster be a little different as they went 1-3 against RR teams in CA. That's also not a terrible thing as the more results you have against RR teams shows your willingness to schedule tough teams.