BB: IIAC: Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[Floyd in Iowa City]

I am telling you right now......after seeing Hyland throw some last year as a freshman, and then seeing his stats to start this season, it would not suprise me to see him making conference starts sooner than later.  I think, based on limited viewing of Luther, that he is/will be this season, Luther's second best pitcher (behind Kohls).

It would be nice to see all of the teams get games in this weekend to really see what is out there in the conference.

I trust Todd quite a bit after how he has performed the past couple of years.  Kohls (8-1 with a 2.55 ERA last year) and Todd (8-3 with a 2.40 ERA last year) have been pretty solid as #1 and #2 over that time.  Flaig had a nice season last year as a freshman (6-2 with a 3.43 ERA), but Hyland has made things look easier than Max so far this year.

Nelson (4-2 with a 4.11 ERA) has good stuff and has pitched some good games (Gustavus was one of the games in person last year in the Dome that he looked great), but he is up and down with his location and just being crisp.

[Floyd in Iowa City]

I have seen that Hiatt isn't on the same pace as last year.  Do you think that he has come back to earth a little this season, or is he just struggling right now?

He has had some big hits and drove in a decent amount of runs so far (11 in 8 games), so I am not too worried yet about him falling back from last season.  Hiatt had great numbers last season before his numbers fell back in the regional (fell to .366 at season's end), so I could see his batting average being around .340 to .375 again this year.  If he hits around that with some pop and good run production it should be a good year for him.  Offensively I found myself paying the most attention when he, Waddle, or Schott were hitting this week.  All three of them hit some balls hard even if it wasn't always for a hit.

Luther is losing 2-1 to Wartburg in the 8th.  Too bad I couldn't make it today.  Go Norse!

[Floyd in Iowa City]

Congrats to Wartburg for winning 3-2 in the 13th inning.

Congrats as well to the pitchers for both teams.

[youcantseemestill]

Luther swept Northwestern (MN) in the Dome last night, 3-0 and 13-1.  Both teams had good pitchers going in the first game while Northwestern struggled on the mound in game two.

Pitching staff veterans Kohls and Todd both threw very well last night.  Kohls was very effective as he threw a complete game shutout while striking out 12 and giving up 3 hits.  Todd gave up 5 hits and a run in six innings in game two.

Perhaps Joe Nelson (#3 starter last year) and Max Flaig (#4 starter last year) will get the nod on the mound today. 

Paul Pichelmann (#3 starter in 2006) looked good in relief last week and may get the nod with Cody Hyland (threw a no-hitter against Gustavus last week) tomorrow.

When teams play at neutral sites (like the Dome) and switch off being home/away, is it the home team's team book that is Official? If that is the case, GAC was the home team in game 2 vs Luther and their website shows 1 hit. Looks like GAC gave a hit to DesLauries while Luther gave an E to Hyland. I wasn't there so I have no idea what the play in question was like. But if its the home teams book that is official then Hyland doesn't get credit with a no-no.

In non-conference games on a neutral field, the only book that matters to a school is their own.  When teams travel to Florida or Arizona for their spring break trips they don't meet up with the home book to discuss rulings.  You keep you own book in those situations and that is all that counts into your stats.   In conference games, however, the home SID/home book have the final and permanent say on what goes into the final stats from those games.  That is a dumb rule for our conference because there are SIDs in this league that have no clue on how to score baseball games.

[youcantseemestill]

Wartburg over Luther  3-2 (13)
Central over BV  15-7
Coe over Loras 7-2
Simpson over Cornell 16-2 (8)

[Greek Tragedy]

Don't come in the baseball board too often, but article in USA Today about Buena Vista and other teams playing 3 am games in the Metro Dome! lol...

[Floyd in Iowa City]

Looks like Luther is about to turn one loss to Wartburg into three.   4-0 in the 5th to Wartburg.

With the 3-2 (13 innings) and 2-1 losses to the Knights, Luther has now lost 5 close games in which the offense could not get it done when it needed to.  Most phases of the game have been solid to very good overall, but a 5-6 record and 0-3 conference mark is a very bad way to start the season if this continues.

Coe and Simpson are not going to get any easier.  In fact, Coe has probably been playing better ball than the Knights so far this season.

[Floyd in Iowa City]

Don't come in the baseball board too often, but article in USA Today about Buena Vista and other teams playing 3 am games in the Metro Dome! lol...

Playing crazy hours sometimes to find out that one of the games doesn't even count.  The Dome people need to find a way to address that.

[Kohawk Krazy]

Kohawks split with Loras today, winning 10-5 and losing 2-1.

Great start to the IIAC season for Coach Cook's squad...

[SLP-O-8]

BV took 2 out of 3 from Central in Pella.  Central took the first one 15-7 but BV took the final 2 games.  There was a great pitching dual from the way it sounded in the first game saturday.  Dekker for BV went the distance giving up 4 singles for the 3-0 victory.  Mahan took the loss with 6 IP, 6 Hits, and 2 ERs.  Dekker has pitched great this season so far but only got the one victory.  His stats so far are 4 starts, 19 IP, 13 Hits, .95 ERA, with  20 ks to 8 walks.

[youcantseemestill]

Interesting start to the season thus far.  I thought that on paper, Luther was far and away the most talented overall team.......and they still may be, but that was a struggle this weekend, especially at home.  To get dominated by Luke Albert is not a good sign.  Maybe it shows a real weakness they are going to have against lefty starters. 

Nice job by BV coming back after getting dominated in game one.  They look like they are really hitting the ball well thus far. 

Coe has won two series's so far.  Winning 4 of 6 against the two Dubuque schools.  Ryan Nicholson has pitched very well thus far.

[Floyd in Iowa City]

Luther won both games against Simpson tonight to get back to 2-3 in the IIAC.  Cody Hyland won game one to move to 3-0 while Paul Pichelmann got his first start of the year and pitched well again to move to 1-1.  Pitchers Todd and Kohls should hopefully be ready to go this weekend.

The Coe series seems pretty significant to me in that the Norse will not play in the conference again until Simpson again on April 16.  Hopefully everyone is healthy and they can throw all the pitchers as Viterbo and Augsburg are the next couple of DHs.

Norse pitchers have held opponents to a .221 batting average so far and have given up only 36 runs in 13 games.  Thanks in big part to the brutal Wartburg series, Luther is only hitting .285 so far with 72 runs scored in the 13 games.

Pitchers Hyland (3-0 with 0.50 ERA in 18 innings), Pichelmann (1-1 with a 1.53 ERA in 17.2 innings), #1 Kohls (1-0 with a 1.57 ERA in 23 innings), and #2 Todd (1-2 with a 3.52 ERA in 15.1 innings) have all thrown well most of the time while #3 Joe Nelson and #4 Max Flaig have mostly struggled this year (Flaig to a lesser extent) compared to how they can throw.  I wonder if Nelson or Flaig will be scheduled to start one of the three Coe games this weekend?

Waddle (.409 with 11 RBIs) has been the most consistent Norse hitter, but Schott (.293 with 9 RBIs) and Hiatt (.304 with 15 RBIs) are very capable of moving toward the consistent level that Waddle has been at.  Schott hit very well in the Dome and has not hit well since they have played outside.  I do still think this team will start hitting at a more consistent level much more like last season than what the stats show right now.

[SLP-O-8]

BV split with Dubuque tonight in Caroll.  Dub took the first game like 10-4 and BV won the second game 12-10.  I dont know much about the games beside Piertzyk had 3 HRs on the day. 

[Floyd in Iowa City]

3 HRs is quite the day!

[SLP-O-8]

Yeah that puts him at 5 so far this season.