D 3 softball

[deiscanton]

New England softball action resumed at 9 AM Eastern on Sunday, with a NESCAC elimination game.

Bowdoin has just eliminated Williams to set up the NESCAC Championship title game(s).

Start times for the New England championship game(s)

Little East--  11 AM Eastern--  Eastern Connecticut vs Keene State  (Eastern Conn needs 1 win to advance while Keene State needs 2 wins)

NESCAC--  11:30 AM Eastern--  Wesleyan vs Bowdoin  (Wesleyan needs 1 win while Bowdoin needs 2 wins)

MASCAC-- Noon Eastern--  Westfield State vs Salem State  (Westfield State needs 1 win while Salem State needs 2 wins)

Update-- At 12:45 PM Eastern--  Eastern Connecticut wins the Little East tournament on a walk-off homer by Molly Rathbun in the bottom of the 8th to defeat Keene State, 1-0, in extra innings.

Molly Rathbun pitched a 5 hit shut out of Keene State.  In 8 innings pitched, Rathbun walked 1 and struck out 12 Keene State batters.

Update-- 1:20 PM Eastern--  Bowdoin defeats Wesleyan, 5-2, to force one more game to decide the NESCAC title.    The next game is scheduled to start approx 1:50 PM Eastern.

Update-- 1:30 PM Eastern--  Salem State defeats Westfield State, 5-1, to force one more game to decide the MASCAC title.   The next game should start around 2 PM Eastern.

Update-- 2:48 PM Eastern--  Wesleyan defeats Bowdoin, 10-1, in 5 innings  (8 run rule) to capture their first NESCAC softball tournament title and the NESCAC automatic bid to the NCAAs.   This is Wesleyan's first NESCAC title and the first time ever in the history of NESCAC softball that a team other than Williams or Tufts has won the tournament.

Update-- 3:39 PM Eastern-- Salem State defeats Westfield State, 6-2, to capture the MASCAC tournament title and an automatic bid to the NCAAs.

[deiscanton]

Pool A bids decided on Sunday, May 9, 2010

Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference--  Frostburg State  (First one of the day-- decided at 11:23 AM Eastern)

CCIW-- Illinois Wesleyan  (Bid secured at 4:13 PM Central/ 5:13 PM Eastern)

Empire 8-- Ithaca  (Bid secured at 5:53 PM Eastern)

Landmark-- Moravian

Little East--  Eastern Connecticut

MASCAC-- Salem State

MIAA-- Trine

Midwest Conf-- St. Norbert

Minnesota IAC-- St Thomas (MN)

NAthCon  (Northern Athletics Conference)-- Aurora

NESCAC-- Wesleyan

NJAC-- Kean

WIAC-- UW- La Crosse  (Bid secured at 5:54 PM Eastern)

All Conference tournaments completed.

[WLCALUM83]

Regarding the NAthCon-Aurora was the only team to beat Benedictine in regular season conference play this year.

Couple of questions:

Does Benedictine have a shot yet?

Who knocked off Ohio Northern? (for a while the Polar Bears' Cash was virtually un-hittable)

[deiscanton]

Regarding the NAthCon-Aurora was the only team to beat Benedictine in regular season conference play this year.

Couple of questions:

Does Benedictine have a shot yet?

Who knocked off Ohio Northern? (for a while the Polar Bears' Cash was virtually un-hittable)

I will answer the second question first, and save the first question for a later post, since the second question is easier to answer.

In the OAC tournament,  Cash was rocked big-time and was the losing pitcher in both games in which Ohio Northern got eliminated from the tournament.

On May 7,   Ohio Northern took their first loss of the tournament to Muskingum.   Cash gave up 8 hits and 2 earned runs in a 2-1 loss to Muskingum.

Yesterday, in the 7-3 Ohio Northern loss to John Carroll that gave John Carroll the OAC tournament title and eliminated Ohio Northern from the OAC tournament,  Cash gave up 6 hits and 4 earned runs before being relieved.

I will try to answer the Benedictine question later today in a Pool C picture-- although Benedictine was ranked #6 in the Great Lakes going into the week, so this will have to take some research.

If anyone else wants to take a stab at a Pool C analysis, be my guest....

Updated post-- Now I will try to answer the first question

As far as the pecking order goes, Benedictine (IL) will have to wait in the Great Lakes pecking order until Carthage, North Central, and Augustana get considered for Pool C selection.

Benedictine is 4th in line in the Great Lakes Region to get to the national table for Pool C consideration, IMO.

Benedictine finishes with a final in-region record of 30-6-0 for an in-region winning percentage of .833

Benedictine also has an impressive 4-2 in region record vs reg ranked opponents  (win against Carthage-- #1 in  the Great Lakes, win against Trine (#6 in Central-- in region under 200 mile rule), 1-1 split vs North Central (#4 in the Great Lakes), and a split vs Elmhurst  (#7 in Great Lakes in 4/28 regional rankings-- the NCAA DIII softball committee now uses the once ranked, always ranked rule to determine regionally ranked opponents, so Elmhurst is considered a regionally ranked team.)

Benedictine's weakness is in their strength of schedule numbers-- because Benedictine plays 24 conference games in the regular season, their strength of schedule is at .502 as of 5/5 rankings.  That SOS is relatively low for a Pool C candidate.

The games against Lakeland and Aurora this week should boost Benedictine's SOS numbers, but will it be enough to get a Pool C bid for Benedictine?   I don't have the answer to that question-- but it may be a long-shot for a Pool C for Benedictine despite the impressive regional winning percentage and the results vs regionally ranked opponents.

We will see when the selections get revealed at noon Eastern tomorrow  (Monday May 10) on the NCAA.com selection show.

There will be a live selection show on NCAA.com which will reveal the selections, brackets, and game times.  The 8th regional site is also to be announced tomorrow, and the regional sites will be randomly seeded from #1 to #8 to determine the order in which the regional winners will meet in the first games at Eau Claire, WI in the DIII Softball "World Series."

PS-- I feel a little reluctant to do a projection on Pool C due to the upsets-- I welcome someone else to take a guess at it.

[AUPepBand]

Pep has an update from Alfred State College....in the Empire 8 Tournament, Ithaca defeated Alfred in the suspended game from yesterday. (No score available). Since it was AU's first loss in the double-elimination tournament, the two teams square off for the title in 15 minutes.

On Saxon Warriors!

[deiscanton]

Pep has an update from Alfred State College....in the Empire 8 Tournament, Ithaca defeated Alfred in the suspended game from yesterday. (No score available). Since it was AU's first loss in the double-elimination tournament, the two teams square off for the title in 15 minutes.

On Saxon Warriors!

The final score of the suspended game was Ithaca 3, Alfred 2

Empire 8 title game now playing.

Update--  Alfred 3, Ithaca 2 after 3 1/2 innings as of 4:47 PM Eastern    Alfred batting in the bottom of the 4th.

Update-- Ithaca 5,  Alfred 3 after 4 1/2 innings as of 5:05 PM Eastern

Update-- Alfred 5, Ithaca 5 after 5 innings as of 5:12 PM Eastern

Update-- Ithaca 6,  Alfred 5 after 5 1/2 innings as of 5:25 PM Eastern

Update-- Ithaca 12, Alfred 5 after 6 1/2 innings as of 5:47 PM Eastern

Final-- Ithaca 12, Alfred 5  (5:53 PM Eastern)

Ithaca wins Empire 8 tournament and automatic bid to NCAAs.

Alfred on the table as the top Pool C candidate from the Northeast Region.

[AUPepBand]

Congratulations to the Bombers....and the Saxons! Ithaca gets the AQ and AU will likely get an at-large berth in the NCAAs...the Saxons' first!

On Saxon Warriors!

[deiscanton]

Now that the conference tournaments are completed, I am looking forward to root on my Brandeis Judges (anticipating that I will see Brandeis make it in as a Pool B pick tomorrow for their first ever NCAA softball tournament appearance)-- in the upcoming NCAA tournament.

As long as I see Brandeis in the field tomorrow, I don't care whether it is in Wellesley, MA or in Providence, RI, or in Ithaca, NY--  (although I would prefer Wellesley or Providence myself....)

Brandeis is ready to take on all comers....

As for me, I say-- Go Judges!!

[ball]

The CCIW seems to be exceptionally deep this year. What other CCIW schools have the best chances of getting in?

[deiscanton]

Good morning, everybody.

The NCAA.com Selection Show is today at Noon Eastern.    Please watch.

(Noon Eastern, 11 AM Central, 10 AM Mountain, 9 AM Pacific)

As for the question posed before I had to go to sleep regarding the CCIW-- my short answer to this question posed is that I believe that Carthage and North Central have the best shots to get Pool C bids today while Augustana may be on the outside looking in.

Tourney resumes of the CCIW schools that are under Pool C consideration:

Carthage  (#1 in Great Lakes as of the 5/5 regional rankings)

Final regional win-loss record  (includes conf. tournament)--  20-9-0   (.690 in-region winning pct.)

Strength of schedule through May 2 games is .600--  Exceptional strength of schedule number.

Carthage has an 8-5 in-region mark vs regionally ranked opponents  (Includes CCIW tournament)

North Central  (IL)--  (#4 in Great Lakes as of the 5/5 regional rankings)

Final in-region win-loss record-- 28-11-0  (.718 in-region winning pct.)

Strength of schedule through May 2 games is .573-- Very good strength of schedule number.

North Central has a 7-7 in-region mark vs regionally ranked opponents  (Includes CCIW tournament)

Augustana (IL)-- (#5 in Great Lakes as of the 5/5 regional rankings)

Final in-region win-loss record-- 20-11-0  (.645 in-region winning pct.)

Strength of schedule through May 2 games is .549-- Also very good strength of schedule numbers.

Augustana has a 6-8 in-region mark vs regionally ranked opponents  (Includes CCIW tourney results.)

[deiscanton]

Selection show has concluded--  and I am going to have to modify my Pool A automatic qualifier for the OAC.

It turned out that even though John Carroll did win the Ohio Athletic Conference tournament  (which in most conferences would mean that John Carroll would be the Pool A champion) (and I reported it on that basis)--

By some rule that stated that since Ohio Northern won the OAC regular season title and made it to the title game of the OAC tournament, the OAC deemed it good enough to ignore the results of the OAC championship game and award the Pool A bid from the OAC to Ohio Northern.

Therefore, despite the result of the OAC title game,  Ohio Northern goes into the NCAAs and John Carroll does not.   The OAC should have made that public on its tournament website explaining the rules for awarding the Pool A from that league because I was misled and I am a little upset of the OAC leading me to misreport their Pool A qualfier by accident.

In other news--

Chicago got the third Pool B pick over Union by means of a secondary criteria win over Union earlier in the season, so Wash U, Brandeis, and Chicago get the three Pool B picks to the NCAA tournament.

Brandeis is the #2 seed in Wellesley, MA--  Eastern Connecticut and Molly Rathbun get the #1 seed in Wellesley, MA.  That means that the Judges will probably have to defeat Rathbun twice to make it to the "World Series" in Eau Claire, WI-- Brandeis lost to Eastern Connecticut by a 3-2 score in Waltham, MA earlier this season in a lightning delayed game.

Eastern Connecticut opens with Husson on Thursday, while Brandeis opens with Endicott on Thursday.

Providence, RI will be a 6 team regional site--  Wesleyan will be the only New England team competing in the Providence regional.  Wesleyan will play Kean on Friday, while the top seed in Providence is TCNJ-- TCNJ plays Baruch, while Moravian plays Neumann.

Update:  Thanks, Phil for correcting me--  Post modified to reflect Phil's correction.  (Post modified at 4:46 PM  Eastern).

[deiscanton]

Pool B teams selected by the NCAA--

1.)  Washington University
2.)  Brandeis
3.)  Chicago

Pool C teams selected by the NCAA--  (Pool C's are as announced in order when the NCAA revealed the brackets.)

1.)  North Central (IL)
2.)  DePauw
3.)  Central  (IA)
4.)  Claremont Mudd Scripps
5.)  Simpson
6.)  Alfred
7.)  Lebanon Valley
8.)  Susquehanna
9.)  Christopher Newport
10.)  TCNJ
11.)  Texas-Tyler
12.)  Mississippi College
13.)  East Texas Baptist
14.)  Bowdoin
15.)  Alma
16.)  Carthage
17.)  Redlands
18.)  Augustana (IL)

[phil]

Providence, RI will be a 6 team regional site--  Wesleyan will be the only New England team competing in the Providence regional.  Wesleyan will play Kean on Friday, while the top seed in Providence is Moravian-- Moravian will play Neumann on Friday, while TCNJ plays Baruch.

The top seed in Providence is TCNJ – who will play #6 Baruch in the first round.

[WLCALUM83]

Louisiana Regional note:

This time it's LaVerne's turn to play in this bracket. Last year Linfield gave UT-Tyler all the Patriots could handle before bowing out:

If Louisiana, ETBU and/or UT-Tyler stay alive long enough, and all pitchers are on their games (should those squads meet) it may come down to which defense bends the most first.

DePauw Regional:

This poster expects Ohio Northern to bounce back, but this is another one that's too close to call.

Christopher Newport:

Salisbury's got a good balance of pitching and offense, but Messiah's Rhoads and CNU with home field advantage may have a great say in how things go here.

Simpson Regional:

Linfield got shifted here this year, (more favorable than last year) --methinks IL Wes will try to make a big-time statement after having Coe on the ropes in the final last year--and losing.

[5 Words or Less]

MIAC / WIAC one selection apiece ... surprising