NCAA Baseball

[LetsGoRabbits]

ORU plays tonight at 6pm
they are the 4 seed in the region
OK St U is the 1 seed and i believe they are rated #11 in the country

interestingly, ORU has already played and beaten OSU TWICE this year
also interesting the 2 seed in the region is Dallas Baptist who ORU has played 3 times and lost every time

I have a lot of respect for ORU even if i do not particularly like them or the way they go about a lot of their business. Their baseball team is really really excellent this year! they are truly one of the best teams in the country as far as being able to do BOTH Hit and Pitch!

most of all, i think ORU going on the national stage and showing how good they are proves that the Jacks also had a very good team this year. we definitely did get dominated by ORU. FWIW we played them 5 times and our best player only played 1.5 of those games

other than ORU we tied the season series with UNC and NDSU but we outscored both of them for the season series. outscored UNC by almost 20 runs in 6 games. and outscored NDSU in fargo for the two most important games of the series 25-6

the jacks offense actually scored just a little bit more per game after McDonald got hurt. great testament to a bunch of good, experienced players who refused to make excuses or give up!!!! i dont know if anyone will return with covid eligibility?? but the offense has a lot of seniors. our best starting pitchers are underclassmen

i think this team was deserving of more attention than they got, myself very much included!! congratulations to ORU on a really really excellent season and good luck with the postseason!! but also congratulations to our Jacks for also having a very good season

[Roy]

Final ORU 6 OK St. 4!

[LetsGoRabbits]

Final ORU 6 OK St. 4!

and 2 seed Dallas Baptist (who beat ORU 3 times this year also lost) so tomorrow night 4 seed ORU plays 3 seed Washington at 8pm

maybe there is something i dont know or am misunderstanding, but from what i can see the final RPI this region is kinda interesting

first of all final RPI had Dallas Baptist 16 and OSU 17
interesting OSU is the overall 11 seed and hosting the region??

also
final RPI
Dallas Baptist - 16
OSU - 17
UW - 36
ORU - 76

not overly concerned or anything, just found it a bit interesting. at least theoretically 2 of the top 20 teams in the country both dropped their opening game in the same region

[Roy]

Dallas Baptist 18. OSU 4 The hosts are gone without a whimper!

[Roy]

ORU 15, Washington12. ORU in the cat bird seat,. In the finals at 2-0.

[LetsGoRabbits]

ORU 15, Washington12. ORU in the cat bird seat,. In the finals at 2-0.

Did you watch any of this Roy? saying ORU wins 15 - 12 at least hints it was an interesting game but that is probably underselling it a bit))

UW scores 7 in the bottom of the first
leads 8-0 after the second

ORU scored 12 during the next 3 innings and leads 12-8 after 5
UW kept on coming and brought the tying or lead changing run to the plate in both the 6th and 7th

winning after trailing by 8 is the biggest come back in NCAA tourney play since 2015 and tied for 3rd largest comeback since 1999

the two teams combined for.... wait a minute..... THIRTY EIGHT hits!!! 24 hits for ORU tied their season high

UW and Dallas Baptist play tomorrow. i believe at 3 but that might be Eastern Time

either way it will be a rematch for ORU in the final
rematch of the wild game tonight with UW
or a rematch from 3 losses to DBU earlier in the year

[LetsGoRabbits]

DBU beat UW in the rematch of their first day game. not positive i remember exact but i think 9-1

DBU scored 27 runs in their last two games coming into the final tonight vs ORU

ORU leads 4-1 thru 5
ORU starter gives up back to back HR in the 6th and it is tied at 4

bottom of 6 ORU RF Hogan hits a two run bomb to put ORU back on top 6-4 after 6

in case you are interested, with this HR, Hogan now has 17 on the year. that ties him with Ryan McDonald for the most HR this season by a Summit League player. McDonald has not played a game since April 29 and that was only a few innings in which he had 2 hits in 3 AB. he has not played a full game since April 28 and it took until June 4 for any other Summit league hitter to finally catch him in HR. I think Hogan is also the player that finally caught him in Base on Balls. that happened either the final weekend of the regular season or in the SLT

when McDonald went down he was leading the league in OPS, On Base %, Slugging %, HR and BBs. He did lead the nation in Slugging also, but they took him off the board in the last week. I assume they are saying he does not have enough ABs. he was one of only two players in the country slugging over 900. he finished .929 the next guy who they are now recognizing as the leader slugged .915

[LetsGoRabbits]

going to bottom of 8. ORU leads 6-5

ORU will have the 1, 2, 3 hitters at the plate in the 8th

IF DBU can hold it to a one run game, they will have their 2, 3, 4 hitters facing ORU all american closer in the 9th. Denton has already pitched in BOTH games this weekend so theoretically he could be a little off the top of his game

[LetsGoRabbits]

DBU closer has not pitched the entire regional because all 3 games have been NOT close

comes on in the 8th and strikes out Cox and Hogan to end the inning. not saying i have watched Cox play a ton of games but he was a first team all american who leads the nation in # of hits. DBU closer made him take the worst swing i have seen him take all year for strike 2 on a breaking ball

ORU did bring in Denton the all american to pitch in his 3rd consecutive game. they are up by one

[LetsGoRabbits]

so much for Denton being tired. weak grounder from the leadoff (#2 in the order), gets behind the 3 hitter 2 balls no strikes then goes three straight fastballs 96mph, 96mph, 96mph, 2 down. hits the 4 batter on the first pitch. weak grounder from DBU 5 hitter who was 3 for 3 in the game to end it

[LetsGoRabbits]

i have seen the stats all year showing that ORU can both hit and pitch very well, but watching them the last two weekends, their pitching is really incredible. they just put one stud after another on the mound. the jacks have 2 very good relievers in Bourassa and Sundquist and Clemons looks good too, but ORU has at least 3 relievers that are easily better than all of them.

dont know what years all the ORU guys are and definitely some of them could get drafted even if they are not seniors. both Cox and Denton are juniors lot of the other, at least hitters, are seniors i think but not positive

for us, Sundquist is a Jr, Clemons soph, Goble soph, Arbogast soph, Hawkins soph, Kent had some great moments this year is a freshman. hopefully these guys continue to grow and our pitching staff can lead the way next year while a bunch of young hitters get their feet on the ground (again not sure what seniors for us might come back??) i think the freshman SS coming from WHS, Ronken, could be very good, maybe even ready to make some noise next year, but i am sure our offense is gonna take a step back from this year, unless everyone has and uses a covid year


as for next week and Super Regions, i definitely concede i could be wrong, but with an RPI in the 70s coming into regionals, i will guess ORU could have the lowest RPI going into next weekend. if they would reseed, i would guess ORU would face overall #1 Wake Forest next week

but i am pretty sure that i heard the announcers say ORU will play whoever wins between Oregon and Xavier. Those are the two teams who beat Vanderbilt (ranked #4 in the country going into regionals) and knocked them out of the of the regional where they were the #1 seed.

Oregon RPI 34
Xavier RPI 44

FWIW OK St was 17 and DBU 16 going into this weekend

as i have said i am NO particular fan of ORU, but there is no denying that they have an incredibly talented team and they have a more than solid chance to be playing in Omaha and could even make some noise if they get there. baseball is pretty easily the sport where mid major schools have the biggest opportunity to make some noise. Coastal Carolina has previously won a championship and teams like Indiana St, Campbell, and DBU were all in the final top 20 in the country in RPI