WSU 21, BU 5, a final. MSU loses 10-5 to Northern Iowa. The Shockers play the 7 p.m. game Thursday against the lowest-seeded winner from Wednesday. Great weekend for the Shockers, and we will see if they can keep it up next week against better competition.
WSU 17, BU 1, after four. If not for two bad innings, the Braves would be ahead. Shockers put up nine in the fourth. Every Shocker has a hit, except for Andy Dirks, who has a 22-game hit streak. Dirks is 0-2 with two walks.
UNI 9, MSU 3 in the fifth.
WSU 8, BU 1, bottom of the fourth.
UNI 9, MSU 0. UNI’s Dane Embury hit a grand slam in the third
WSU 8, BU 0 after one. McKeever and Workman hit two-run homers. Gillaspie drove in two with a double. BU starter Collin Brennan fails to record an out. He gave up two walks and six straight hits before departing.
UNI 3, MSU 0, in the second.
Lineups are here: Kevin Hall, with two hits in the past two games, is in left field. BU is starting right-hander Collin Brennan, who is 0-3 with a 6.48 ERA.
WSU is one win away from wrapping at least an MVC co-championship. Should the Shockers win (or Missouri State lose to Northern Iowa) it would be WSU’s first back-to-back MVC titles since 1999-2000. In my mind, four main things changed in the past 10 years that made it tougher for WSU to win the MVC.
- More schools began to take baseball seriously, producing parity. College baseball’s building boom started roughly in the late 1990s. When more schools try, really try, it’s harder for dynasties. Ask LSU, which missed an NCAA regional the past two seasons. Or Oklahoma State, which had a standing reservation in Omaha during the 1980s and early 1990s.
- Exposure camps. This is a Brent Kemnitz favorite. A Kansas, Iowa or Oklahoma kid that previously was recruited regionally goes to a recruiting event and gets national attention. Diamonds in the rough are harder to find because they’re picked over.
- Formation of the Big 12 in 1996. The addition of the Texas schools forced the Northern Big 12 schools to bump up their baseball work and boosts their RPI. Big Eight schools such as Kansas, Kansas State, Nebraska, Iowa State and Missouri didn’t make much of a national splash in the 1970s and 1980s. In the Big 12, those schools that still have baseball are doing more to keep up. Obviously, Nebraska and Missouri are stronger national factors than they were 15 years ago. That affects WSU recruiting.
- The MVC going to three-game series in 2005. That move appears to have helped the private schools, at least in their view. The four-game series got deep into their bullpen. Depth is always going to be an issue for private schools trying to divide up 11.7 scholarships because of their tuition. In 2005, Creighton became the first private school to win the MVC title since Tulsa in 1974. Evansville won it in 2006.
Baseball America has mock draft and it projects Conor Gillaspie to go 17th to Toronto.