BB: E8: Empire 8

[Smithers]

As we have seen in the past, Coach V's inability to use his pitching "correctly" has hurt his teams in post-season play (guess he got lucky twice in the 80's).

Its suprising that with Ithaca having a JV team, they are not able to develop more arms to use. Isn't developing players the purpose of having a JV team?

[WrongArm]

The more I question Ithaca's pitching depth, the more I feel like one of the E8 coaches who chose RIT to win the league. This team may make fools of all the doubters.

[John McGraw]

As we have seen in the past, Coach V's inability to use his pitching "correctly" has hurt his teams in post-season play (guess he got lucky twice in the 80's).

Its suprising that with Ithaca having a JV team, they are not able to develop more arms to use. Isn't developing players the purpose of having a JV team?

Keep in mind, had Gardner not been drafted (who knew) and if Brown were still on the roster, you have two more healthy body's right there to add to the pitching give you a strong starting rotation and a lights-out closer.

wrong arm i guess that just proves my point a little bit more, I may have been generous with the 7 arms. They will have McDaniel,Sapp, Fishback, Lynch, Healy and Eggleston who can get them some outs.  That isnt going to win you a regional unless the top 4 guys are lights out and all pitch complete games.

This still doesn't guarantee a title. This happened in 2007 where Ithaca had it's pitching lined up perfectly (three complete games or something near that if I remember) going into the championship round against cortland and still dropped two straight.

[John McGraw]

Huge confidence win today for Ithaca with an 8-0 shutout of cortland. It snapped an eight-game losing skid against the Dragons and was the Bombers first win over c-state since April 2006.

Hopefully these two meet again down on Long Island.

[WrongArm]

Ithaca wasn't taking any prisoners today. They pitched by committee but they used their best.

[John McGraw]

Ithaca wasn't taking any prisoners today. They pitched by committee but they used their best.

Well, when you only have seven guys who regularly see mound action, there's not a lot of options.

[WrongArm]

Well, when you only have seven guys who regularly see mound action, there's not a lot of options.

I see your point.

[AlleyCat]

Looks like Ithaca has punched its (Pool B) ticket to Farmingdale unless they fall apart the rest of the way. I do question whether they have enough pitching in a 8 team regional. It looks like they have 4 guys who throw all their innings.

Nice win yesterday against the Red Dragons. When is the last time Cortland has had this many losses at this time of year?

[Bob Maxwell]

2004 is the las time they lost 10 games, finishing at 29-16... they suffered their 9th loss of the year on tax day (17-9), but didn't lost their tenth game until 3 days later on 4/18.   This year they are  18-10 on tax day. 

[John McGraw]

IMO the 2004 team was better though the class of upstate that year was Brockport, Ithaca and clarkson. That was the last year of the four-team, New York only regional (Brockport, Ithaca, RPI and cortland).

Anyways, the '04 team struggled but look at its' non-conference schedule in Florida, very aggressive (included D-I Maine). The team got on a roll once it got home but throughout the year you could tell that this wasn't the typical steamroller people had come to expect with non-characteristic losses to Oneonta (I still remember that rainy day at Wallace Field and the huge thunderstorm that knocked out press box power), Rochester, St. John Fisher. Still, the team went 20-3 once it got back from the Florida swing.

And things just came undone at the end and the team couldn't buy a hit and really missed Travis Robinson who was hitting .520 in Florida when he got knocked out for the season. Overall the offensive numbers were good but come crunch time, the heart of the line-up went downhill. The middle of the order became a black hole and no one really hit the ball.

Pitching wise, there's similar bullpen problems though the '04 starters with Burnett, Hubbs and Miller were by far better IMO than Tone, Blanco, Assman, Ratliff etc etc.

[John McGraw]

Ithaca splits this afternoon with Fisher at Freeman Field.

Game 1 - Ithaca 5-3
Game - Fisher 7-3

[WrongArm]

E8 basement update:
After having been picked to win the E8, RIT has fallen off the map. They had a tough week with 4 weekday games sandwiched between sets of Sat/Sun double headers. With losses to Rochester and two to Brockport, the Friday win against Oneonta was probably a small consolation. Today they came perilously close to getting swept at Utica. Utica won the first game 7-6. RIT won the second 3-2.

[John McGraw]

E8 basement update:
After having been picked to win the E8, RIT has fallen off the map. They had a tough week with 4 weekday games sandwiched between sets of Sat/Sun double headers. With losses to Rochester and two to Brockport, the Friday win against Oneonta was probably a small consolation. Today they came perilously close to getting swept at Utica. Utica won the first game 7-6. RIT won the second 3-2.

Jeez, I wonder how many people want their votes back now? That being said, judging what Ithaca lost from last year, it wasn't that much of a surprise in the pre-season to see another team selected to win the league.

[John McGraw]

Ithaca 15 Rochester 9

The Bombers scored seven runs in the eighth inning to erase a 9-7 Rochester lead. The big news though is freshman Ian Rebhan (first appearance, probably a JV call-up) earning his first victory with four innings of relief.

Pete MacDaniel didn't pitch terribly well (7 earned runs, 4 innings) though he's been solid all year so I don't take too much of it.

The heart of the line-up was strong as Dylan Perez and Kurt Bendarcyk each had four hits, scored three runs and drove in two. David Ahonen plated three and Matt Streich had three hits.

Ithaca plays at Oswego tomorrow and then at Brockport Sunday, Oneonta Monday and Wednesday and St. Lawrence at home on Tuesday. It's a nice healthy stretch of games, weather permitting and may be why a couple of freshmen pitchers have been added to the roster - Rebhan and Jackson Quinn.

[Bob Maxwell]

What happened to RIT?   did they read their press clippings and not work at it?  Or was everyone just wrong when they put them on top?   Any insigths on what happened...