DIII Spring Trip Report Card: Week 1

It’s Sunday night.  There’s nothing on TV.  I don’t feel like writing my paper for grad school.  All this adds up to me concocting something to write about regarding DIII baseball.  

Tonight’s concoction?  A report card.  

I went back and reviewed the spring trips of the teams that wrapped up this weekend and assigned them grades.

 One thing to mention is that I didn’t compare these team’s against each other, but rather against themselves (and the expectations for their 2010 season).  So a team that received an ‘A’ didn’t necessarily have a better resume than a team that received a ‘C’.  It just means that the former vastly exceeded what I expected from them.  

Capital (4-4)

The Crusaders notched three of their four wins against John Jay (NY).  The Bloodhounds are currently 1-6.  As I mentioned in the recap post, their fourth and final win came in dramatic fashion against 7-3 Cedarville.  The Jackets had just shut out the Crusaders back-to-back games  and then beat them 10-6 prior to Capital’s 12-11 walk off win.  I liked the fight Cap showed in coming back to beat a team that had downed them three times in two days.  

From an OAC standpoint I thought the 15-14 loss to John Carroll was a double-edged sword.  It was a nice confidence boost to jump out to a big lead on a conference tournament contender like JCU.  It proves to the players that they absolutely can play with teams like Carroll.  At the same time, it stings to let that one slip away in the late innings.  

Overall, I thought the trip went pretty much as expected based on the schedule.  Capital took care of business against John Jay, notched a nice win against Cedarville and played JCU tough.  A win over JCU or another win over Cedarville would have made the trip outstanding, but overall it was still good.

Grade:  B

Hiram (3-6)

Confession time…I really struggled grading Hiram.  I couldn’t decide how to weight big picture versus details.  In the big picture I liked that Hiram equalled their win total for all of 2009 during their spring trip.  This is obviously a positive for the Terriers.

At the same time I wasn’t high on how Hiram lost those six games.  The Terriers were shut out in half of those losses.  They lost by an average score of 13-2 in those half-dozen games.  More concerning was that outside of the loss to Rose Hulman these were not Regional caliber teams.  

Hiram opened with a split against Hanover (IN), proceeded to drop three straight (St. Vincent, RHIT) and then split each of the last two days (MSOE, Eastern Nazarene).  I liked that the Terriers ended on a high note, so to speak, with a couple splits.  After Rose Hulman beat them 17-0 handing them their fourth straight loss (and third shut out loss) the Terriers could have packed it in, but they didn’t.  They battled back and split the next two days.

Grade:  C+ 

John Carroll (5-3)

The Streaks trip down south seemed pretty much like business as usual to me.  Was it perfect?  No.  I would have said a perfect trip would have included a split with Cedarville and a sweep of Juniata, both very realistic outcomes.  Instead JCU was swept by Cedarville and split with Juniata.  Not ideal, but not a huge deal either (although the 8-1 loss to Juniata bothered me).  

Fortunately, a couple of one run wins over NC Wesleyan were certainly highlights for Carroll.  

The games against John Jay and Capital were wins, but wins that I’m guessing the Streaks were counting on.  And I’m guessing Coach Thibeault was not expecting Capital to put nine runs up in the first inning.  To his squad’s credit they chipped away, bided their time and struck when the opportunity presented itself (in this case when the bullpen struggled).  That’s what good teams do, they find a way to win those games.

Grade:  B-

Ohio Northern (4-0)

There’s not really much I can nitpick with ONU.  What can I say negatively about a team that went undefeated?  I questioned why they only played four games on the message board, but that’s more of a question than a complaint.  

Earlier on the message board I also brought up that their first two wins were against less than stellar competition, but the Bears subsequently went out and beat a normally tough Wesley program the next game.     

Ultimately, I was very surprised with how well ONU hit the ball (12 runs/game).  On paper their lineup was less than intimidating, but on the field they’ve been very prolific thus far.  Obviously it’s a great start for Northern and the easiest grade of the bunch.

Grade:  A

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