D3baseball.com Daily Dose

TWINE Notes #2 March 11th 2008

Looking back at Week #2–March 3rd to March 9th

Games of the Week

Eastern Connecticut vs Kean–Kean picks up the victory behind a strong pitching performance from Joe Bartlinski (7IP, 5H, 2ER, 13K, 2BB). Eastern had 5 errors which cost them, it should be noted that this was there first game and they have made only 3 errors in the next two games. This was a good win for Kean (after being swept by Manhattanville) but no need to worry for Eastern.

Wheaton vs Cortland State–Josh Simmons started his transition to a starter (21 appearances in 2007—all in relief) with a loss against Cortland State. A game where the two teams combined for 8 errors. Last week I mentioned that Wheaton, Cortland, and TCNJ would all be playing each other twice. Once through the rotation TCNJ is 2-0 and 5-0 overall. Cortland is 1-1 while Wheaton is 0-2

Toughest Week
WPI—St. Joe’s Maine (W 3-0 & L 10-7), Muskingum (W 5-4, L 14-7), Northland (W 9-1, W 12-6), Lewis (L 9-3), Misericordia (L 13-12), Thomas More (W 10-4), & Albion (L 4-3, W 9-6). The Engineers return to Worcester with a respectable 6-5 record. Staff ace Conor Fahey lead the staff with a 2-0 record (wins over St. Joe’s Maine and Thomas More). Fahey pitched 16 inning with a 1.69 ERA.

Looking Forward to Week 2–March 10th to March 16th

Games of the week

Many more games to choose from as many more teams are in action this week.

GNAC—Sunday March 16th, Suffolk vs Montclair State—If a GNAC team can score a victory against a top NJAC team they should be very happy.

LEC—Saturday March 15th, Keene State vs TCNJ (DH)—TCNJ is rolling (5-0) and will be taking on a Keene State squad fresh of the airplane from New Hampshire. Although the Owls would love a sweep, a split here has to be a good sign going forward.

MASCAC—Saturday March 15th, MCLA vs Rowan—MCLA seems like a team ready to break out in the MASCAC. They will be tested by a Rowan squad that already has a win against Cortland State and a double header sweep of MCLA’s conference rival Worcester State.

NAC—Wednesday March 12th, Elms vs Curry (DH)—A good test early for Elms. Curry returns a solid core that won the TCCC last year.

NESCAC—Friday March 14th, Tufts vs Lynchburg—Tufts breaks the mold of the teams going to Arizona or Florida and heads to Virginia to match up against Lynchburg. This will be a good test for the Jumbos as this will be their first game and it will be Lynchburg’s 19th.

NEWMAC—Saturday March 15th, Babson vs Amherst—Many felt that Babson had an argument to get an at large bid last year. That bid may have gone to Trinity, a victory against another NESCAC team may help the Beavers if they are in a similar situation in 2008.

TCCC—Sunday March 16th, WNEC vs Wheaton—These two teams split a pair of one run decisions last May in Norton, MA. This year they meet a few months earlier and 2,699 miles away (Yes, I did take the time to see how far apart Phoenix and Norton are, it is 2,699)

Toughest Week
Wheaton (including their entire Arizona Trip)—The choice for toughest week this week was not difficult. Wheaton is playing 10 games in Arizona and 8 of those games will be played against teams that participated in the NCAA tournament last year. Also their opponents averaged 31 wins last year. The schedule breaks down as below…

Saturday—TCNJ L 12-4
Sunday—Cortland State L 8-4
Monday—Monmouth W 13-6
Tuesday—Cortland State L 9-5 and Webster W 7-6
Thursday—TCNJ
Friday—Hope
Saturday—Montclair State
Sunday—John’s Hopkins & WNEC

The Lyons are off to a 2-3 start but it should be noted that they started 1-4 in 2007 and received the #1 seed the New England Regional.

Sorry for the delay in getting this up. I checked out two games between Brockport State and Kean on Sunday on a cold and windy early March day in New Jersey and my fingers just thawed out enough to type.

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).