BB: USAC: USA South Athletic Conference

[mustang19]

Don't you think the school's Athletic Department would check the guy's eligibilty before letting him play in a game???

[narch]

Don't you think the school's Athletic Department would check the guy's eligibilty before letting him play in a game???

you'd think that would be the case, but both guilford and shenandoah have had football players with eligibility issues in the past 2 years

if i understand correctly, the d3 eligibility clock doesn't start until you play...could it be that he enrolled somewhere without playing?

[Jim Dixon]

The way I understand it, he actually enrolled in a college after his senior year in HS...
...and if this is true, there is NO WAY he can be eligible for NCAA...unless he got a special waiver.  If I were a USA South team, I would be checking under every nook and cranny on that guy.

The rules are different for D3 - no age limit, no limit on how much college.  The rule that applies is how many years he played in a sport.  If you have 8 years of college and have yet to play - your still get 4 years like an 18 year old with no college.

He could be a freshman with a lot of credits.  I went back to get a second bachalors degree and was a freshman until I asked them to evaluate my transfer credits.  Presto I was a senior.

Averett has done a lot with their freshmen.  I'll have a short piece on them tomorrow on d3baseball.com

[A.G.]

Ah ha...that explains it.  I'm used to D-I rules and figured they applied in D-III as well.  Thanks, Jim.

[NCWC]

The guy that has the consecutive hitting streak record for d3 was also much older than the regular freshman at his time of arrival.  I think he was in the military, like the kid from Wisc.-Stevens Point

[NCWC]

Freshmen make the difference for Averett
The Averett Cougars' last appearance in the NCAA playoffs was 2003 when they finished with a 27-14 record. Today the Cougars are only five wins from matching that total as they are 22-5, leading Division III baseball in wins and are three wins from leading all NCAA baseball divisions (Division II Lenoir-Rhyne has 24 wins). Their success lies with an influx of new talent as their everyday lineup features five freshmen "The talent level of our team has increased," said coach Ed Fulton. "We had a good recruiting class."

A key member of this freshman class is shortstop Jake Loye who leads the team in homeruns and RBIs and third with a.373 batting average. "Both shortstops in high school, Loye and second baseman Eric Sibrizzsi have solidified the middle both defensively and offensively," said Fulton. The three other freshmen who have found starting jobs are Jeremiah McMillian (.378, 15 runs), Ahmad Shelton (.349, 7 SB), and John Lesueur (.306, 19 runs). It is not only the freshmen class that has contributed to the Cougar's success. Seniors Pierce Steinruck (.391, 23 RBI), Larry Motherhead (.339, 15 Runs), and T. J. Bray (.352, 23 RBI) have helped Averett to one of their best start in school history.
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Junior pitcher Travis Reynolds (4-0, 1.78 ERA) is the old man on the Cougars' pitching staff working primarily as a reliever and a spot starter. The starting rotation features a host of freshmen and sophomores. At the top of the starting rotation is Shelton (5-0, 2.25) and sophomore Jacob Walker (4-0, 3.11). Another freshman who has found early success at Averett is Chase Hall (2-0, 1.04) who leads the team with five saves. "It is exiting to see a young team play to their potential," said Fulton.

Fulton acknowledges that the easiest part of the season is behind him with eight conference games in the next month. "Top to bottom our conference stacks up to others," said Fulton. "You look at how many times a team from the USA South made it to the Championships". With a weekend series at N.C. Wesleyan this weekend and perennial top teams in Greensboro, Methodist and Ferrum still to come, the challenge to the team is to keep winning. Fulton has confidence in his team to continue improving. "Right now the team is playing to their talent level, not above it."

[NCWC]

Bishop baseball to sponsor Relay For Life charity event

Rocky Mount, NC - The North Carolina Wesleyan baseball team has announced that it will sponsor a Relay For Life charity event on Saturday, March 17th. The Bishops, who will take on USA South foe Averett University at 1:00 p.m. at Bauer Field, will donate all gate receipts to this annual fundraiser.  Donations are also welcome.
Wesleyan began its "Relay" fundraising efforts earlier in the year when the Bishops sponsored a Hit-A-Thon.  NCWC collected 2,863 hits in two days as players compiled a list of sponsors to support their hitting efforts.  The Hit-a-Thon allowed each individual to swing for ten minutes in succession collecting as many hits as possible.

Saturday's event is Wesleyan's latest effort to donate to "Relay."  Be sure to come out to cheer on the Bishops and support this worthy cause.

[narch]

jim - great article about averett...anything positive about the usasac is always good to see, especially on the front page...of course, i think you should have mentioned that au is currently 5th in the 7 team usasac

[Catfishncwc]

Averett has come a long way from the days I played in the Dixie.  When I played averett was just starting in the conference and they had a play-in game for the conference tournament and Averett always played in the play-in.  We used to call that game the Averett Invitational.  Congrats to Coach Fulton for putting a nice program together from strach. 

[narch]

the monarchs scheduled game with rhodes has been postponed until saturday - rhodes is off to an 18-2 start and has scored a TON of runs (5 or more in all but 2 games, and a number of double digit scoring games...they're averaging 9.6 runs per game...wow) - i don't know much about most of the teams they've played, but they look like they will test the monarch pitching staff

[narch]

03/17/07--- The Rhodes Baseball team outscored Methodist College University by a score of 6-1 to extend their current winning streak to 14 games. Before last season, when the team equalled the school record for wins, the Lynx had not won more than 13 games in a season since well before the turn of the century. Rhodes' 2007 record stands at 20-2. The Lynx will return home to play Elmhurst tomorrow at 12:00pm.

no box, but it looks like rhodes is pretty hot right now...

[narch]

is this box score correct?  did BOTH pitchers go 11 innings?  pretty amazing, if so

[PrideSportBBallGuy]

I'm back after a long absence.  I will throw a few things out there:

a) Except for the grass, War Memorial reminds of the stadium that the Rockford Peaches played in the movie League of Their Own.

b) Somewhat looking forward to the Greenboro-Guilford game at First Horizon park.  I went over there last year when Greensboro beat Brown and I am not too sure why but they were serving alcohol. I am not too sure if that is a good idea or not. I don't know what the game will be like if both Greensboro and Guilford college students start to get drunk at the game.  It was a very lively basketball game.

c) Keep on rolling Greensboro Softball.

[narch]

the monarchs rebounded for an 8-1 win vs. piedmont last night - for those of you who don't know, pc is coached by former long-time monarch assistant jim peeples and has 2 assistant coaches who are former monarchs...talk about knowing what you're going to do

box score

psbbg - has the gc softball team played anyone who is any good?...the record is pretty impressive, but i haven't looked closely at the competition -  i know the monarchs have played (and beat) the defending national champions twice and played 5 of 6 games vs. ranked teams in the nfca leadoff classic last weekend (going 4-2) - it's great for the usasac to have 2 nationally ranked teams...wish we could say the same about baseball

[PrideSportBBallGuy]

The softball team did beat the number one ranked team at the time (Muskingham) when they were in Flordia when they went 7-1. They beat the now number 10 Emory once. Not too sure about the rest of the games. I saw methodist last year at the regionals while visiting family up at Salisbury last summer. I was impressed. Oh the latest poll has only one team listed from USASouth.

http://nfca.org/top25/index.php?cat_id=3&poll_id=141