By: Jordan A
FLAMETHROWERS AND DINGERS; TOP 10 TEAMS STRUGGLE; AND A BACKFLIP
BIG PERFORMANCES
First of all, Tennessee’s Ben Joyce throws 103 MPH. That shouldn’t even be legal in college.
Florida State and NC State went AT EACH OTHER! 17 innings worth of baseball in Tallahassee to finish on a walkoff bomb by FSU’s leadoff-hitting DH.
NC State’s freshman Tommy White caught the nation’s attention by hitting 9 bombs in his first 8 collegiate games. Since then, he’s still been raking but hasn’t hit anymore home runs. Until Saturday when he put out a pair of nukes to help NC State score 15.
Concordia Nebraska’s (NAIA) Jakob Faulk hit a ball that was measured to be at least 500 feet.
-Virginia’s Jake Gelof hit his 12th home run of the season, which means he is leading D1 baseball in dingers.
-Southern Miss’s Danny Lynch hit a walkoff NUKE on Friday to give them the first game of the series against Florida Atlantic.
-We also had a walkoff bomb by Michigan State’s Dillon Kark against Houston Baptist which was electric to see.
-Another walkoff home run was hit by Faulkner’s (NAIA) Jordan Funk to beat #2 ranked Tennessee Wesleyan.
-NAIA’s #1 ranked Southeastern Fire earned a win to complete a sweep on Sunday afternoon which also happened to be Head Coach Adrian Dinkel’s 500th career win.
-Portland’s RHP Peter Allegro got the save against BYU and busted out a backflip in front of the mound.
UPSET ALERT
Only 3 teams in the NCAA D1 top 10 lasted the week without a loss. #3 Arkansas took 5 total games from Grambling and Kentucky, #4 Vanderbilt beat Michigan and swept Missouri, and #7 Tennessee absolutely handled Eastern Kentucky and South Carolina. Baseball is a sport where any team can win on any given day, but some of the results of the weekend series we had will have you questioning whether or not the Top 25 rankings actually tell you who the better team is.
The first notable upset we had on the weekend was #6 Notre Dame getting SWEPT by unranked Louisville. Just like I said on the Friday update, Notre Dame had a matchup against a solid Cardinals team who was 13-4 going into the series. This opened ACC play for Louisville, which puts them at the top as the only unbeaten team in conference play.
Staying in the ACC, another top 10 team in #10 Georgia Tech had a rough weekend against unranked Wake Forest, who was 14-3 going into the series. The Wake Forest Demon Deacons might have one of the wildest mascots in college athletics. They also took 2/3 from the Yellow Jackets to improve their conference record to 3-3.
#18 Clemson had some struggles this last week losing to Georgia St. and dropping 2 conference matchups against Miami.
Into the D2 world, we have former top ranked team (now #7) Nova Southeastern dropping 2 Sunshine State Conference games to RV Florida Tech. This now gives the 7th ranked team in D2 baseball a losing conference record at 4-5. Wild. They may actually have an idea of which teams are best in D2 baseball with that being the only upset on the weekend within the top 10.
NAIA time, we had #2 Tennessee Wesleyan take a loss to RV Faulkner in the royal rumble that went down in Georgia. Tough to call this an upset because Faulkner is in the World Series damn near every year. But this does snap a 23-game winning streak for TWU.
Defending champs #5 Georgia Gwinnett also lost to RV Faulkner this weekend in that same event they had in Georgia. I’m not part of the committee that votes on the Top 25, but if there is a single person that does not vote to put Faulkner in there after this weekend then they need to be evaluated.
OTHER NOTABLE RESULTS
D1 – It was an absolute slugfest in Athens, GA with the matchup of the Bulldogs to begin SEC play. #23 Mississippi State traveled to the #20 Georgia Bulldogs and at least one of them scored double digit runs in each game. Saturday’s game was finished with a walkoff by Georgia’s Cole Tate.
Game 1: MSU 0-11 UG; Game 2: MSU 11-12 UG; Game 3: MSU 20-3 UG
D1 – #12 Stanford is currently down 2 games in the series against #16 Arizona. They finish the series on Monday where Stanford hopes to come up with a win, but they are down pretty bad in the PAC 12 with a 1-4 record so far.
Game 1: Stanford 2-3 Arizona; Game 2: Stanford 5-6 Arizona; Game 3: Mon. 3/21 6PM PST.
NAIA – #2 Tennessee Wesleyan squared up against World Series defending champions #5 Georgia Gwinnett in a single game as part of the previously mentioned round-robin.
Tennessee Wesleyan 7-4 Georgia Gwinnett
NAIA – #7 Westmont battled with #16 Hope International for Golden State Athletic Conference play. This conference uses a 4-game series format for conference series with a double-header on both Friday and Saturday. College baseball is crazy. The weekend ended with a split which keeps Westmont at the top of the conference with a 17-3 record while HIU is 13-3.
Game 1: Hope International 5-0 Westmont; Game 2: Hope International 0-4 Westmont;
Game 3: Hope International 14-11 Westmont; Game 4: Hope International 5-7 Westmont
CONTACT ME
If you have any college baseball news that you believe should be shared, feel free to reach out to me on Twitter @JAchay97 or email: jordanachay@gmail.com. Check back in at the end of the week to see what’s coming up in the college baseball world.
-Jordan Achay
