D3baseball.com Daily Dose

New England teams are slowly but surely getting out onto the diamond this week. With the beginning of the season we present to you This Week In New England Notes (or TWINE Notes in the fashion This Week In Baseball’s TWIB Notes). Every Monday we will look at the week coming up in New England and the week that was.

What you can expect each week…

Looking forward to the upcoming week we will identify
· Region wide game of the week
· The team with the toughest week
· Playoff projections if the playoffs started today (starting in April)
· Conference games of the week

Looking back at the past week we will discuss
· The outcome of the games of the week
· How the team with the toughest schedule faired
· Who’s hot
· Who’s not
· Batting line of the week
· Pitching line of the week

Looking Forward to Week #1
March 3rd to March 9th
Games of the Week
No conference games of the week this week due to the slow schedule of games but there still are a few games of national interest.

Eastern Connecticut vs Kean @ Rutgers, Monday 2 pm, Live stats available through Kean’s website
A matchup of top ten teams that both made it to Wisconsin last May. Although they did not meet in the tournament last year Kean did pick up a 5-3 win in Mansfield in March. This game was close throughout and was one of two losses for All American Pitcher/DH Shawn Gilblair. Guessing at the starting pitchers in this game gives us a matchup of Joe Esposito for the visitors (4-3, 3.35 in 12 starts in 2007) and Andrew Cupido (4-2, 3.83 in 5 starts in 2007) or Thomas Paglione (3-0, 5.51 in 6 starts in 2007 and 0-0, 3.00 in 1 start in 2008) for the homestanding Cougars. If playing against a top ten team isn’t enough to get a team fired up Kean is also coming into this game with something to prove after being swept by Manhattanville on Sunday.

Wheaton vs Cortland State, Sunday 3 pm, in Arizona
Cortland State will be playing their first game of their Arizona trip (this will be Wheaton’s second) but Cortland State already has three games under their belt from a trip to Virginia in late February. These two teams did not play last year as Wheaton played their spring break games in the cactus league (AZ) while Cortland State played in the grapefruit league (FL). In 2006 in Port Charlotte, Florida Cortland slugged their way to a 10-5 win. Another interesting schedule note here is that Cortland State (D3baseball.com #2 national ranking, highest ranking team in New York Region), Wheaton (#14, second in New England), & TCNJ (#15, third in Mid-Atlantic) will be playing a mini tournament of sorts this spring. The schedule is set up so these each team will play the other two teams twice. Fans of the team coming away from these four games with the best record should be excited of what the rest of the season may hold.

Toughest Week
WPI (including yesterday’s games)—St. Joe’s Maine x2 (W 3-0 & L 10-7), Muskingum x2, Northland x2, Lewis, Misericordia, Thomas More, & Albion x2

Note: Most teams have yet to start playing a full schedule. Only Anna Maria, WPI, Clark, & St. Joe’s Maine are playing full schedules this week.

This is the first installment of this blog and does not include all the features. More will be added as more teams are playing. Looking forward to the actual games starting so we have more than just our opinions and projections (note: opinions and projections are still encouraged after the season is in full swing).