Baseball
NCAA Regional Preview
By John Porentas
Overview: The Texas A&M Aggies are the top-seed and host in the regional. The Aggies compiled a season-record of 44-16 and are ranked in the top-20 in all the major college baseball rankings. A&M earned a 13-13 record in Big 12 play and won the conference tournament championship with a 14-6 win over Baylor in the tournament final. They also downed fifth-ranked Texas in the Big 12 tournament. The Aggies have had problems on the road this season and are just above .500 at 8-7 when not at home. They have been very good on neutral sites at 6-2 and excellent at home with a 30-7 mark while homestanding.
At the Plate: A&M junior outfielder Blake Stouffer is hitting a gaudy .391 to lead the Aggies in batting. The right-handed hitting Stouffer is no slap-hitter He has also hit nine homeruns and has a whopping .626 slugging percentage.
Right handed hitting senior infielder Dalton Parker is hitting .384 for the Aggies, right-hand hitting catcher Craig Stinson .357, left-handed hitting first baseman Luke Anders .353, right-handed hitting infielder Brandon Hicks .349 and switch-hitting outfielder Ben Feltner .319 to round out the list of .300 hitters. As a team, the Aggies are hitting .320.
The Aggies have hit 58 homeruns this season. Three Aggies, Stinson, Anders and Hicks, have hit double-digit homeruns with 11, 10 and 10 respectively.
The Aggies have scored 431 runs this season, an average of just over seven runs per game.
On the Mound: Any discussion of Aggie pitching must start with senior right-hander Kyle Nicholson. Nicholson is 11-1 this season and also has five saves to his credit. His paltry 1.92 ERA leads the Aggies. He has a team-high 23 appearances, nine of them as a starter, and has pitched a whopping 112 and one-third innings. He has struck out 93 and walked just 18 thus far this season. Junior southpaw David Newman has started a team-high 16 times and has put together an excellent 10-1 season. His 3.21 ERA is second-best on the Aggie staff. Freshman right hander. Scott Migl has 10 starts for a 6-3 record and 4.03 ERA.
As a staff, the Aggies have 4.02 ERA. The opposition is hitting .253 against Aggie pitching this season. A&M pitchers have struck out 453 and walked 217.
Tournament Matchup: The Aggies will face four-seed Le Moyne in the first game of regional play. That game is scheduled for 8:00 PM EDT Friday.
Overview: The Louisiana Lafayette Ragin' Cajuns are the Number-two seed in the College Station region. The Ragin' Cajuns compiled an excellent 45-13 record this season including a sensational 22-2 mark at home. They were 3-1 on neutral sites and 18-12 on the road. The Ragin' Cajuns finished their Sunbelt Conference schedule with a league record of 23-7, a full seven games ahead of second-place finisher New Orleans who finished 16-14 in the league. New Orleans did exact a measure of revenge against Louisiana Lafayette when they came out of the losers bracket of the league tournament to upset the Ragin' Cajun in the conference tournament title game.
At the Plate: Offensively, the Ragin' Cajuns are an extremely powerful team. They have belted a total of 72 homeruns this season. They are led in the homerun category by right-handed hitting junior catcher Jonathan Lucroy who has 17 this year. Right-handed hitting Scott Hawkins is not far behind at 16, while right-handed hitting junior outfielder Nolan Gisclair has 11 and left-handed hitting outfielder/first baseman Jeffrie Tadford 10. The four account for 54 of their 72 round-trippers.
Louisiana Lafayette his hitting .312 as a team led by Lucroy at .364. Lucroy is also the team-leader in RBI with 65. Tadford is hitting .362, Hawkins .349 and Gisclair .341. Josh Logan (.336) and Xavier Alexander (.307) round out the hitters over .300 who see regular action. The Ragin' Cajun have scored 427 runs this season, a little over seven runs per game.
On the Mound: On the mound right-handed sophomore reliever Danny Farquhar has pitched a team-high 83 and two-thirds innings and has a team-low 2.80 ERA. Farquhar is limiting the opposition to .225 hitting and has given up just two homeruns this season. He has struck out 112 while walking just 21 in compiling a 6-3 record and has also recorded a team-high six saves. Farquhar has made 29 appearances, 24 of them in relief. Farquhar has been elevated into a starter's role late in the season and probably will get the starting nod in the first game of the NCAA tournament.
Left-handed junior Hunter Moody and right-handed junior Buddy Glass each have a team-high 14 starts to their names this season. Glass has an ERA of 3.18 in compiling a 7-4 record while Moody was 8-3 in earning an ERA of 4.14. Left-handed junior Brent Solich has nine starts this season for a 5-1 record and a 3.18 ERA. As a team, the Ragin' Cajun sport an impressive 3.79 ERA. The opposition is hitting .272 against Ragin' Cajun.
Tournament Matchup: The Ragin' Cajun's will be OSU's first opponent in NCAA tournament play. In the last two meetings between OSU and Louisiana Lafayette the Buckeyes defeated the Ragin' Cajun 10-3 in 2001 and 7-3 in 2003. Both of those game were played in Lafayette. The NCAA tournament game is schedule for 2:00 PM EDT on Friday.
Overview: The Buckeyes had their problems this season but finally got themselves together at the end of the year to win the Big Ten tournament championship and the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.
OSU finished the season with 37-22 overall record and 15-15 record in the Big Ten for a sixth-place finish. OSU's fortunes took a turn-for-worse early in the year when last year's pitcher-of-the-year in the Big Ten Dan DeLucia underwent Tommy John Surgery just prior to the start of the Big Ten season. To make matters worse, OSU also lost the services of pitcher Josh Barerra about midway through the season as well. Barerra was expected to be a starter in the OSU rotation this season and to also be called upon in long relief.
OSU Head Coach Bob Todd thought he had depth of quality pitching coming into the season, so moved Jake Hale, a starter last season, into the closer's role. When both Hale and DeLucia went down, Todd was left scrambling for pitching. OSU tried several approaches, including using freshmen Theron Minium and Josh Edgin in starting roles and experimenting with former closer Rory Meister as a starter.
In addition to OSU's pitching woes the Buckeyes struggled through an uncharacteristically weak fielding year. Last year's first-team All-Big Ten second baseman Jason Zoeller was asked to move over to shortstop, but Zoeller had trouble making the adjustment and committed a team-high 20 errors.
As the season progressed Todd made several moves that have seemed to help his team. He moved Zoeller into the designated hitter's role and inserted freshman Corey Rupert into the lineup at short. That has helped the Buckeyes defensively. He also moved Hale back into the starting rotation in the last two weeks, and Hale has responded with outstanding work to bolster the pitching staff. Last weekend Barerra pitched in the Big Ten tournament to add more hope for the OSU pitching staff.
At the Plate: The Buckeyes can hit the baseball. They just don't hit it very hard. The Buckeyes are hitting a very respectable .316 as a team, but have hit just 19 homeruns this season, nine of those coming off the bat of Zoeller.
Left-handed hitting center fielder Matt Angle has a team-high .365 batting average and also has stolen 22 bases in 29 attempts. Zoeller is hitting .352, left-handed hitting sophomore outfielder/pitcher J. B. Shuck .348, first baseman Justin Miller .342, third baseman Tony Kennedy .335, catcher Eric Fryer .332 and outfielder Jacob Howell .316. Friar is OSU's RBI leader with 49 and Howell is currently tied for the most career triples in OSU history.
Despite the lack of power the Buckeyes have managed to score runs. OSU runners have crossed the plate 358 times to allow OSU to average six runs per game. The Buckeyes are a singles-hitting small-ball kind of team that have to bunch hits and steal bases to be effective offensively.
On the Mound: The loss of DeLucia and Barerra took two left-handed arms out of the OSU rotation, one of them their ace. Junior left-hander Corey Luebke, however, stepped up to replace DeLucia and succeeded him as the Big Ten pitcher-of-the-year. Luebke was also named the MVP of the Big Ten tournament. Luebke had 15 appearances this season, all as a starter, and posted an impressive 1.84 ERA and an 8-1 record. He pitched a team-high 102 and two-thirds innings and struck out 91 while walking 28.
Jake Hale has returned to the starting rotation and the junior right-hander has been impressive since making that move. He recorded wins over Michigan and Minnesota in the Big Ten tournament and has pitched with a new-found determination since returning to the starting role. Left-hander J. B. Shuck is OSU's third starter. Hale's ERA is 4.19, Shuck's 4.48.
The upside of the injuries to DeLucia and Barerra is that some young pitchers got a chance to pitch and picked up valuable experience. Freshmen Eric Best, Minium and Edgin, all left-handers, all pitched extensively this year and all improved as the season progressed. The return of Barerra, also a left-hander, gives OSU depth on the mound heading into the NCAA tournament. Corey Meister has returned to the bullpen.
As a staff, OSU's ERA is 4.36.The opposition is hitting ,277 against the OSU staff.
Tournament Matchup: OSU will face Louisiana-Lafayette in a game that will feature two excellent pitchers and two very different offensive attacks. The Ragin' Cajuns are a long-ball team, the Buckeyes a small-ball team. Luebke will be the starter for OSU and most likely Farquhar for Louisiana-LaFayette.
Overview: The Dolphins of Le Moyne will head to Texas from their home campus in Syracuse, New York as the number-four seed in the region. The Dolphins play in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference and recorded an overall record of 34-17 this year and a conference record of 22-3. Le Moyne posted a home record of 14-3 and a road record of 17-12. They were 3-2 on a neutral field.
At the Plate: Junior Shortstop Andy Parrino will enter play in the regional tournament as the only .400 hitter in the region. The switch-hitting Parrino is hitting .408 and has hit nine homeruns this season to lead his team in both batting average and homeruns. He also has a team-high 44 RBI and a team-high slugging percentage of .660. Three other Dolphins are .300+ hitters. They are right-handed hitting sophomore outfielder Mike Brown at .338, right-handed hitting junior third baseman Stephen Crawford at .318 and junior right-handed hitter Phil St. Amant at .312. Brown and Crawford are also the team's stolen base leaders with 13 and 17 respectively. Le Moyne has hit 38 homeruns as a team and has a team batting average of .295.
Le Moyne has scored 298 runs this season for an average of 5.8 runs per game.
On the Mound: The Dolphin have relied sophomore right-hander Eric Beaulac and senior right-hander Bobby Blevins in the starting roles this season, and senior light-handed relieverRyan Woods has been sensational this year. Beaulac has 14 starts to his credit. He has a record of 8-1 and and ERA of 2.55. Beaulac has pitched 72 and two-thirds innings, has struck out 81 and walked 48. Blevins pitched a team-high 104 innings and posted an 8-1 mark and 2.77 ERA. Woods has been The Man out of the bullpen. He has 28 appearances and has been credited with 14 saves. His 1.31 ERA leads the team.
As a team, the Dolphins have a 3.82 ERA. The opposition is hitting .246 against Le Moyne.
Tournament Matchup: Le Moyne will meet Number-one seed Texas A & M in the first round of the tournament.
NCAA Regional Tournament Bracket
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