D3baseball.com Daily Dose

TCNJ has opened up a big lead, WPI is beginning to pull away and CNU and W&J are locked up in a tight first-round battle as the 10 a.m. ET games get into the later innings.

Busy day of Division III baseball. They are indeed playing at Oshkosh — the Net connection in the press box needs to be looked at and a tech has been dispatched but they aren’t expecting to be up and running with live stats until 1 p.m. ET. St. Olaf and Beloit were scoreless in the fourth when we called for an update a few minutes ago.

Been watching the New England video out of the corner of my eye and it’s been a great production so far. Not quite what D3Cast provided from Harwich in terms of replays and graphics in previous years, but the call of the game is solid and there are multiple camera angles to choose from, so it’s definitely worth your time.

Still trying to track down more audio links. Just uncovered that UW-Whitewater will have its games on the local radio and audio stream, so we’ve added that to the Scoreboard page. That’s if the Central Regional gets that game in today. They’re meeting in Moline at 2 p.m. ET to see if they can find a window to squeeze games into. If they decide to get that first game underway, it would probably be around 4 p.m. ET.

Consider this a central meeting place to discuss all eight regionals. We’ll be up late tonight.

The NCAA Division III Baseball Committee has released its third and final 2009 regional poll. The committee has ranked the top 15 percent of eligible teams in each region. The following teams, with records through May 5, were included in this week’s regional poll.

There is one final ranking, but it is not released to the public.

The baseball championship selections will be available early Monday, May 11 on D3baseball.com.

Please note, records are overall record, followed by in-region record.

Central Region
1. Carthage 29-5 25-2
2. St. Norbert 21-11 19-10
3. Illinois Wesleyan 23-13 21-12
4. Coe 21-17 20-12
5. Loras 25-12 2011
6. Luther 27-11 25-11

Mid-Atlantic Region
1. Kean 33-9 29-6
2. Montclair State 25-15 22-8
3. Keystone 34-4 28-1
4. Penn State-Behrend 27-7 25-6
5. The College of New Jersey 23-16-1 21-13-1
6. Manhattanville 25-16 24-15
7. Wilkes 28-11 26-8
8. Frostburg State 24-13 23-8
9. William Paterson 24-16 21-14

Mideast Region
1. Wooster 33-8 27-7
2. Heidelberg 33-7 29-6
3. Otterbein 22-15 18-8
4. Marietta 26-12 22-11
5. Washington and Jefferson 28-11 23-8
6. Adrian 27-9 24-4
7. Franklin 28-9 22-8

Midwest Region
1. St. Thomas 28-9 21-8
2. St. Scholastica 31-4 22-3
3. St. Olaf 25-11 20-8
4. UW-Stevens Point 27-13 25-12
5. Concordia (Ill.) 29-13 27-7
6. UW-Oshkosh 23-15 22-14

New England Region
1. Southern Maine 34-5 29-4
2. Eastern Connecticut State 31-6 28-6
3. Trinity (Conn.) 26-5 26-3
4. Curry 34-7 30-6
5. Suffolk 30-8 27-7
6. Worcester Tech 26-11 25-8
7. Wheaton (Mass.) 30-12 27-10
8. Williams 24-10 20-7
9. Western New England 29-15 26-14
10. St. Joseph’s (Maine) 31-13 28-9

New York Region
1. Cortland State 29-12 24-8
2. RPI 31-9 29-8
3. Ithaca 28-7 22-4
4. Rochester 30-11 27-11
5. Farmingdale State 25-13 24-10
6. Fredonia State 25-10 16-10

South Region
1. Salisbury 36-6 29-6
2. Millsaps 32-8 29-7
3. Shenandoah 33-8 27-7
4. North Carolina Wesleyan 27-19 25-15
5. Christopher Newport 24-11-2 20-11-1

West Region
1. Pomona-Pitzer 35-5 27-3
2. Texas-Tyler 38-10 35-9
3. Cal Lutheran 31-9 27-6
4. Pacific Lutheran 31-8 29-8
5. George Fox 32-9 29-6
6. Texas-Dallas 28-18 27-14

Good afternoon and welcome to Robert H. Wallace Field on the campus of SUNY Cortland for this afternoon’s single game between #17 SUNY Cortland (11-5) and the University of Rochester (11-2). This is a non-conference game between the SUNYAC and the Liberty League. While there are no conference implications involved in today’s game, it will go a long way towards the first NCAA New York regional rankings. Cortland State has made back-to-back World Series appearances and not missed the regionals since 1992. The Dragons were the national runner-up in 2005. Cortland is the proverbial 800lb.-gorilla in the region. Meanwhile, Rochester is looking to make a name for itself in the upper echelon of the regional level. The Yellow Jackets won the Liberty League regular season title last year under head coach Joe Reina, however perennial Liberty League powerhouse R.P.I. won the conference tournament.

First pitch will be coming up shortly. It’s a beautiful day in Cortland with sunny skies overhead. There’s been a slightly chilly breeze from left to right but it’s calmed down for the moment. Temperatures are in the mid-to-upper 30s. This is the earliest home opener for Cortland in recent memory.

Trinity (Conn.) and Johns Hopkins had the first rain delay of the championships this evening, and although it was a brief one, the players on each side still found ways to entertain themselves.

One of them was by tossing a ball back and forth between dugouts, playing a long distance game of tic-tac-toe.

Photos below are by Larry Radloff, D3sports.com.

The game gets started, reportedly by Trinity first baseman Kent Graham

When we wrote on the front page on Tuesday that games “threaten to go past midnight” we were speaking from experience. And that experience was relived Wednesday night in Auburn and elsewhere as the final pitches of the Ithaca/Ohio Wesleyan game came at about 1:22 a.m. ET.

That’s even late in Alaska.

So to the 53 people listening as Ithaca loaded the bases with none out, down two, and as Ohio Wesleyan wriggled out of the jam to get the W, thanks for staying up late. It was a doozy of a Day 1, and Day 2 is just getting started.

Gustavus third baseman Tory Herman digs a ball out of the dirt to throw out an Ole in the third inning

I’m finally getting settled back in at the home office after covering just one game of the MIAC Championship and play-in. St. Olaf exploited every single opportunity Gustavus Adolphus gave them in their 15-6 victory. St. Olaf was supposed to face St. Thomas 30 minutes after they shuttered the Gusties’ 2008 season.

But Mother Nature showed up in the 3rd inning of the play-in and never left. Rain was expected, the start of the first game was moved from 1pm to 11am in an attempt to get both games in before the field was unplayable. However, that was not the case. MIAC Executive Director Dan McKane, Asst. Executive Director

The grounds crew tends to the home plate area following the completion of the Gustavus/St. Olaf game.

Matt Ten Haken, St. Olaf head coach Matt MacDonald and St. Thomas’ Dennis Denning met just off the third base line at 2pm. It didn’t take long for them to make the postponement official and it was no surprise to the fans in the stands — the grounds crew, comprising the head coaches from Bethel, Carleton, Augsburg and two more, had already tarped, drained and staked both the pitching mound and the home plate area.

A photographer came up to me and asked the question I have heard posed each of the last three years: What happens if they don’t get the game(s) in tomorrow? The NCAA requires that Pool A conferences submit their auto qualifier at 6pm Eastern tomorrow. Most conferences want to have their auto qualifier to come from a tournament but they are allowed to determine it in whatever manner they wish.

Dan McKane shed some light on this particular situation for me this evening explaining that all games will be 9 innings in the MIAC tournament, they have no intention of slimming either games tomorrow down to 7 innings to fit them in before the deadline. In addition to that, he added that the committee is willing to let the MIAC complete their games a bit late.

But that brings up the question of what if the field is unplayable? St. Thomas gets the AQ for the MIAC having won the regular season title with an 18-2 conference record.

Gustavus right fielder Spencer Campion makes a catch in the fifth inning

St. Olaf turned four double plays in the game.

The sun is shining, the wind is blowing steadily out to left field and Emory is taking their final warmups out in the field just before the first pitch.

I’ll be on the blog for most of the day giving updates, tidbits and the like. Those of you who are unable to attend the games can catch everything via the live video, live stats and the scoreboard provided by CSTV, UW-Oshkosh and D3baseball.com.

It’s an odd feeling, trying to follow baseball this way. Haven’t been able to get into the NCAA video today. Can’t load Carthage’s audio. Cortland doesn’t have any. And since the Internet is still down in the press box, for a second consecutive day, our eyes and ears in Appleton are muted.

So when I logged in and found that our line score was different from the live stats, I didn’t know what to trust. (Turns out the live stats were wrong. They’ve since been corrected.)

Following baseball in silence is very disconcerting.

But I know others can see the video, so while I re-reboot my machine, share the knowledge. What are we seeing today from Appleton?

Listening to the last game of the day, it is not lost on me that this is two hours earlier than last night. The games on Thursday had all the drama that those on Wednesday provided.

I wont forget listening to the unlikely comeback for Texas Lutheran as they put six runs on the board in the ninth to take a one run lead over Pacific Lutheran only to see the game slip away when the Lutes score two of their own….and then do it again in the ninth inning to extend their game against Pomona-Pitzer, giving them time to push the winning run across in the eleventh.

I wont forget John McGraw’s D3baseball.com broadcast of the 13 inning game that Cortland State and Trinity (Conn.) played with an honest-to God pitcher’s duel.

These are some of the highlights that the World Wide Web has allowed not only I, but the many fans, supporters and parents to experience.

I hope everyone is enjoying the drama of playoff baseball as much as I and don’t forget to keep the on-line discussion going strong as we see who survives the final day before the Regional Championship games.

If you stayed up until the end of that 16-inning game between Wheaton and Curry last night, like I did, you’re probably heavy into your caffeine provider of choice by now. But to watch Curry relievers Eric Lochiatto and Cory Moore go toe to toe with a New England power was fascinating to watch.

Hopefully Curry’s gutty performance on Day 1 will be long remembered.

But even that is overshadowed by the incredible individual performance by Jordan Baitinger of Ripon. The no-hitter first came to my attention after five innings, when I was updating the Scoreboard page. I checked back in in the seventh, tuned in for the eighth, and set up John McGraw, our broadcaster for the New York regional, to do a ESPN-style live lookin for the ninth inning.

Kudos to St. Olaf’s Mike Ludwig for a great call of the game and making it available on the Net.

What’s left for Wheaton? Surprisingly, their pitching staff might be in good shape. Chris McDonough went the first seven and a third and is obviously unavailable. Josh Simmons threw the 13th-16th and faced 16 batters in his four innings. But Keith Pescosolido and Pat Martin threw just two innings each.

So we had a game that tied the longest game in NCAA playoff history and the first no-hitter since 1980.

What a night. Only hope that Day 2 can live up to Day 1. And with elimination games Mid-Atlantic, West and Central today, there should be plenty of drama.

Like yesterday, let’s keep each other up to date on what’s going on here on the Daily Dose. The door is open.