Mid-East Region 2014

[EttaFan1]

Looking around at some of the other conferences in the region.

President's Athletic Conference:
W&J has a six game lead on the field at 18-2 in league play.  Bethany is second with a 12-8 league record with Thomas More and St .Vincent a game behind.  Waynseburg is currently in 5th at 10-10. 

Heartland COnference:
Manchester has a two geam lead with a 17-5 conference mark.  Anderson is two games back at 15-7, and RHIT sits at 14-8.  Franklin currently holds the fourth spot with a one game advantage over 5th place Bluffton.

Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic:
It is of little surprise to find Adrian atop of the MIAA standings, having clinched the regular season championship.  They are currently 20-4.  Calvin appears to have clinched a spot in the MIAA tourney and is currently in second.  Hope Albion and kalamazoo are battling for the remaining two spots. 

AMCC:
The tournament field in the AMCC is set.
#6 PS-Altoona plays at Mount Aloysicious.
#5 Pitt-Bradford plays at #4 Pitt Greensburg.  These happen on Saturday and are a best of three series.

Next weekend, PS-Beherend plas the Altoona/Mt Aloysicious winner, and La Roche (host and top seed) plays the winner of the Bradford Greensburg series and a more traitional four team double elimination format. 

It would appear La Roche, Adrian and W&J are solid favorites.  The race in the Heartland conference appears to be a little more closely contested. 

[Spence]

That could be a tough sell, unless the coach of the team who went out early was VERY confident of a regional birth, or the game would increase their chances of a regional birth.

I think more column B, like Frostburg picking up a game against La Roche and adding a game against Marietta.

What are the rules for that.  You don't see it happen very often.  Even when the mideast region was a four team affair, you didn't see Marietta call up OWU or Wooster and schedule a game for tuesday as a "tune up."  (Now Marietta used to do that frequently before the conference tourney, but this is different.

In the past we would already have schedule Bethany or Ohio Valley, planned to throw about 14 pitches, and usually manage to split a doubleheader.

And then find a highly ranked team who doesn't have their 40 in.  Allegheny would be at 39 games, JCU at 37 (make up!), Wooster at 40, Berg at 40, Marietta at 40...Not a lot of opportunities for that.

That's what I would do if I was Carroll -- play a DH Sunday. Doesn't hurt you for Thursday since presumably you threw your top two guys on Saturday. Sure you'll be behind the curve on pitching but JCU doesn't have much shot at a Pool C as it stands.

[EttaFan1]

 Is there a deadline for when regular season games must be completed in the NCAA rules, though.  I realize there are conferences who completed their conference tourney's a week or more ago.  But how many games in recent years have been scheduled between the OAC tourney and the regional.  Usually the bethany OVU was after the last league DH before the OAC tourney. 

Some of these teams have long layoffs, especially the warm weather teams.  I would think if you could play regular season games between May 4 and the first regional game, somebody would try it.

[ADL70]

2nd RR

1.   Heidelberg   29-7   29-7            
2.   Marietta   25-11   25-11            
3.   Case   30-10   30-10            
4.   Baldwin Wallace   20-10   20-14            
5.   Wooster   23-12   23-12            
6.   LaRoche   26-11   26-11            
7.   John Carroll   19-14   19-14            
8.   Adrian   24-8   25-10            
9.   Allegheny   24-11   25-11

[Spence]

Is there a deadline for when regular season games must be completed in the NCAA rules, though.  I realize there are conferences who completed their conference tourney's a week or more ago.  But how many games in recent years have been scheduled between the OAC tourney and the regional.  Usually the bethany OVU was after the last league DH before the OAC tourney. 

Some of these teams have long layoffs, especially the warm weather teams.  I would think if you could play regular season games between May 4 and the first regional game, somebody would try it.

Ithaca and Brockport are scheduled to play May 10.

[EttaFan1]

Guess there isn't a rule, it just isn't common in "these here parts." 

Some not so surprising things in this version of the rankings, and some surprising things. 

The no big surpirses: 
No change in the top 3.  None did anything to seperate themselves from the other three last week.
John Carroll and Allegheny dropping.

The moderate surprises:
BW @ 4.  Of course they were swept by Oberlin after the weekend (which are not included in the current rankings), and that will have an impact...
I actually thought JCU would drop out, so the fact they are still in is a little surprise.
Still no W&J or Manchester.
La Roche making a significant step forward.

Marietta's SOS is about to take a pretty decent hit as they get to add lowly Wilmington to the tote.  BW's also takes a hit as they take on Capital. 
Crossover games in the NCAC could have a small negative impact to Wooster and possibly Allegheny. 


Some other tidbits:

Records against regionally ranked opponents:
Berg: (Moravian, Adrian, Wooster, BW, Marietta, La Roche, JCU, Case, Alvernia) 11-6
Marietta: (Case, Wooster, Salem St., Webster, Farmingdale State, Wheaton La Roche, BW, JCU, Berg) 11-5
Case: (Wooster, Marietta, Emory, Rochester, Berg, BW, Allegheny, JCU) 9-7
BW: (Salem St, WEbster, LaRoche, Berg, Mtta, JCU, Wooster, Case, Farmingdale St) 8-6
Wooster: (Marietta, Berg, Salem State, Webster, Birmingham Southern, Case, BW, JCU, Allegheny) 6-8
La Roche: (Susquehenna, BW, Marietta, Heidelberg) 1-5
JCU: (Adrian, Marietta, Berg, BW, Case, Wooster, Allegheny, Moravian) 5-7
Adrian: (Moravian, JCU, Berg) 1-3
Allegheny: (JCU, Oswego, Case, Wooster) 3-6

This list is a best efforts basis, and not thoroughly double and triple checked.

Some very challenging schedules!

[Bishopleftiesdad]

I posted this on the MIAA board but i will post this here as well. Calvin wins game with Walkoff Steal of home.

http://mlb.mlb.com/fancave/blog/article.jsp?content=article&content_id=71991384&partnerId=th_facebook

[Spence]

So if Marietta closes it out and wins the regular season OAC outright, are they the new #1 in the regional rankings?

[Spence]

Marietta two games clear atop the OAC.

Shouldn't be much doubt now.

[DagarmanSpartan]

OK.  So when are the NCAA selections made?

[Spence]

Late Sunday the 11th or early Monday the 12th. So, for you, pretty much sometime Monday.

I don't think there's much doubt that Case will be in, just not sure where.

[EttaFan1]

So if Marietta closes it out and wins the regular season OAC outright, are they the new #1 in the regional rankings?

I'm going to say "it depends". If they drop two games to laroche today, no. If they win two, then I would predict "yes." if they split, I don't know how it shakes out.

Marietta is currently 11-5 against regionally ranked teams and berg is 11-6. A pioneer sweep puts them at 13-5, a split at 12-6, being swept at 11-7.

Not much separation between 12-6 and 11-6 or 11-6 and 11-7 for that matter. Both schools have very strong SOS numbers. There is minimal separation between the two at this point.

[motorman]

So if Marietta closes it out and wins the regular season OAC outright, are they the new #1 in the regional rankings?

Since you didn't major in math, heres another lesson: 31-9 is greater than 27-11 or even 29-11 against virtually identical strength of schedule. Even your own chart still has Heidelberg #1.

[Spence]

So if Marietta closes it out and wins the regular season OAC outright, are they the new #1 in the regional rankings?

I'm going to say "it depends". If they drop two games to laroche today, no. If they win two, then I would predict "yes." if they split, I don't know how it shakes out.

Marietta is currently 11-5 against regionally ranked teams and berg is 11-6. A pioneer sweep puts them at 13-5, a split at 12-6, being swept at 11-7.

Not much separation between 12-6 and 11-6 or 11-6 and 11-7 for that matter. Both schools have very strong SOS numbers. There is minimal separation between the two at this point.

Could be true about La Roche, though not much would surprise me. I don't really care much what the rankings look like because most likely both are going to be in the regional and the regional is going to be at Marietta, but I do think they should be gotten right, when possible. It might matter as far as matchups go, but I kind of doubt it.

Record against common opponents: Heidelberg 20-7, Marietta 22-7. Record in conference play (common opponents AND relatively common conditions): Heidelberg 13-5, Marietta 15-3.

SOS difference is obvious and when you take that into account, the difference in won-lost record becomes much less significant. Both teams have played good schedules, but Marietta has played THE BEST schedule by not a little, and has two more tough games today. After today, the difference between MC's SOS and Heidelberg's will be like the difference between Heide's schedule and like #50. It's a significant difference.

Marietta is 9-1 in its last 10 (7-1 vs. not Wilmington) and Heide is 6-4 (4-4 vs. not Wilmington, which also includes a worthless win over laggard Wittenberg). But the real bottom line is that four games ago, Heidelberg had a 1-game lead and two series against mid-conference teams, and finished two games back of first.

MC is going to have a tall order today with its freshmen going against a La Roche team that has stacked back its pitching, throwing a staff game in a loss to Frostburg. But Brewer has made it very clear that they're going to test themselves against the best competition they can schedule, regardless of the circumstances. His belief is that they'll be better for it when it matters most. Looking at his credentials, it's pretty hard to argue that he's wrong.

[motorman]

Records of the 11 teams Marietta has lost to before today is 278-141, a percentage of .663
Records of the 9 teams Heidelberg has lost to is 248-104, a percentage of .704

I think the bad losses to teams under .500 should be taken more into account. Teams with the worst records Berg lost to were 22-16 and 23-15.