BB: USAC: USA South Athletic Conference

[LTBB1971]

Another tough close lost for NCWC yesterday to North Central College which by the way is really good!  Kaleb Wessel and Roby Costa pitched great as usual and NCWC produced 3 hits all day.  Team is now hitting an anemic .268 overall with 4 starters hitting below .265.  Coach Long has done a real good job rotating guys, specially at DH searching for an answer but no one has stepped up.  Next up is Tufts.

[narch]

Ok some of the teams are now (6) games or half way thru the conference schedule w/ some of the others already having their bye.  Any surprises so far on the current standings, player performances etc?

i'm surprised that mu is in danger of falling below .500 25 games into the season...in fact, i never thought i would see it

i thought that perry could be really good (he has been) and i thought that the monarchs might struggle to replace lovett, inghram, davis and lancaster (they have), but i thought the pitching would be deeper than it has turned out to be (womble and judge, two of the best freshman in the conference last year, are sitting at 6.10 and 6.23 era's) and i thought the offense would be good enough, with such, younger, thigpen and quick (all four are producing relatively well), but no other player with more than 60 ab's is hitting over .267...and only power (53 ab's) and armstrong (26 ab's) join the +.267 club when you look deeper

[NoVa Baseball]

DBat - Could not agree with you more about G'boro.  You could see glimmers of improvement from them last year, but this year they seem to be putting it all together.  They played CNU tough at CNU this year and they are much improved.  The Lefty starter did a masterful job of keeping the batters off balance.  Seems like he never left one over the plate.  And the comment about them not quitting is spot on - they used to fold up the tent when they got behind - not this year.

I also want to say that Ferrum has shown similar improvement.  Watching them this weekend was fun even though they took one from my Captains.  They too never quit.  Not a big fan of that field though - it has to be one of the best pitchers parks in the country with the entire field sloping down from CF to home and acres of foul territory.

Don't know what to say about MU.  They beat CNU one game at home which I'm told was a masterful pitching perfomance, but got spanked in the second game.  They do seem to be racking up losses faster than I can remember and the record in the conference is appalling.  The loss of some really good starters can do that. 

Haven't seen Averett play, but they were where G'Boro and Ferrum are this year last year.  Surpisingly good and tough to play at home.  Their record doesn't surprise me at this point. 

Shenandoah is Shenandoah.  They still schedule soft games early, but manage to beat tough teams as well.  They also benefit from playing most of the better conference teams at home this year. 

Wesleyan continues to struggle but with a couple wins in conference seems like they are doing better than last year.  What was up that first game at Averett?  Looked like both teams missed an extra point.

The tournament is shaping up to be the most competitive in several years.  Any one of these teams is capable of winning their first game and after that I'd still put my money on the depth of CNU, experience of Shenandoah, and then the energy of G'Boro and Ferrum.

[narch]

coach austin gets win #999 as the monarchs pound out 12 hits (at least one from each mu starter) in a 9-8 win over north central - tufts comes into town on wednesday and they're off to a hot start to the season

[forheavendial4999]

Factoid from left field: Averett is 10-0 in one-run games.

Jinx: Virginia Wesleyan 3, Averett 2.

[narch]

win #1,000 will have to wait as tufts breaks out the bats (and the monarchs struggled with the leather...8 errors on the day) in a 14-1 win over mu

[LTBB1971]

VWC puts their best effort of the season so far on a 3-2 win over Averett.  FR Alex Tucci has a nice comeback after a rough last start and pitches 7 quality innings giving up 1 ER.  SR Anthony Siracusa who did not see the mound this past weekend during Conference play also throws 2 clean innings for the save. 

Offense finally got on track pounding 13 hits.  Still wondering when/if their SS will ever hit.  Errors still killing VWC but first test of 4 next strong opponents is positive.

[narch]

coach austin gets win 1,000 with a 3-2 win over su - perry goes 8, giving up 2 er and striking out 9 and white comes in to pitch the 9th and get the win - congrats to coach austin and every player who has played for him over his career...they all had a part in getting him to this milestone - getting the win over a strong program like su is gratifying to me, as a fan, as well -

su is winning the second game of the dh 6-0 in the 6th

[narch]

coach austin becomes the 6th to reach 1,000, but his career .699 winning percentage is 3rd among 1,000 game winners

i knew schaly from marietta had done some amazing things, but i didn't realize that he had a .812 career winning percentage (1,438 - 329 - 13)....incredible

gordie gillespie from st. francis won almost 2,000 games (1,909 - 961-1) over a SIXTY YEAR career - i hope i live 60 years, let alone work for 60

again, congrats to coach austin...it took longer than anyone thought it would, but he has really been the standard of excellence in this region for a long time - here's hoping we'll see another 300 or 400 wins from coach austin!

[Boysofsummer21]

First off congrats to Coach Austin and Methodist, a bright spot in a year that has not been so to this point.
Secondly I am surpise at the lack of traffic on this board with the fact that 7 teams in the South Region getting top 25 love. We find once again that CNU and Shenandoah are ranked. Our friends and newest member Piedmount are top 5 and Salisbury, Bridgewater and Birmingham-Southern are all right there. This is setting up for an outstanding South Regional being hosted at CNU.

As to the USA South it has been a good year to watch games this year. I think that the biggest surprise to me has been how much better Ferrum is playing this year. Number 2 would be Methodist's record really surprise by that. Anyone have feelings about this and how about players making their statement for end of year honors?

[forheavendial4999]

coach austin becomes the 6th to reach 1,000, but his career .699 winning percentage is 3rd among 1,000 game winners

i knew schaly from marietta had done some amazing things, but i didn't realize that he had a .812 career winning percentage (1,438 - 329 - 13)....incredible

Schaly is effectively #1 in all divisions. There's some guy ahead of him but he only coached 12 years. Don't ask me why he wasn't inducted into the college baseball hall of fame in the first or second year.

Schaly had a tremendous amount of respect for Tom Austin, it should be said.

[LTBB1971]

Pitcher of the Year so far I would have to give it to C. Perry (Methodist) with V. Claudio (Shenandoah) a real close second.  My Player of the Year vote goes to K. Krout (Shenandoah) with S. Mark (CNU) a close second as well.

As for NCWC, I believe C Tyler Clark should be First Team as UTL and SS Jake Alexander should be Second Team at SS.

[Boysofsummer21]

Krout before Mark??? Really???

Player	Avg	Avg Conf	OBP	OBP Conf	SLG	SLG Conf	2B	2B Conf	3B	3B Conf	RBI	RBI Conf	Error	Error Conf
Mark	.421	.481	.536	.562	.579	.704	2	0	5	3	16	7	1	0
Krout	.363	.421	.487	.511	.429	.500	6	3	0	0	16	8	10	4

So not sure how you are really saying Krout for POY.

Pitcher of the year I am good with Perry but would go Goldsmith but this one will probably go down to the last week.

[PNeal7]

Despite the fact his in-conference average isn't eye popping, I still say Connor Madden will be in the mix at years end. I would take the Pendergraft kid from SU before Krout. Jaglowski, from Ferrum, is having a better year than Krout.

[Boysofsummer21]

Pneal - agree 100% was just doing the compare between the two he listed. POY is going to be tough this year.