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NICL West

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Aug 15, 2010
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What are your guys thoughts on this conference?

My opinion the top two teams are West Marshall and G-R and then their is a significant drop off. I think South Tama is kind of interesting they got pushed around pretty bad in the little hawkeye, but return everyone, and have a really nice player in the Smith kid. East Marshall had a nice season last year, but lose some pieces, but at the same time return some keys. BCLUW has some bats back but I am not sure if the pitching and fielding is there. At the bottom in no particular order South Hardin, Grundy and AGWSR.
 
I think your analysis is pretty accurate. WM & GR should have the most overall talent and should fight it out for the top spot. EM should be the best of the next tier with S Tama, BCLUW and Grundy Center. It is a pretty weak conference overall.

BCLUW has a couple pitchers that will give teams trouble but they don't likely have enough elsewhere to do a lot. S Tama didn't look very strong at all last year but as you mention, return everyone so they may be able to make some noise simply due to having experience. Possible darkhorse as far as conference goes. EM has 2 solid pitchers in Bloom & Wolken and drop off quite a bit from there but have other guys that will throw strikes. Sometimes, that's enough. They are scrappy and could beat anyone in this conference on a given day.

G-R may be the overall favorite as they simply have more upper classman than WM and have 2 solid HS pitchers (if healthy) and appear to have only lost 1 other pitcher, so they might have a little depth on the bump. OTOH, they seem to lose a lot offensively. With the new bats, it will be interesting to see if they can score after their top 2 or 3 hitters.

W Marshall will only have 2 seniors AGAIN this year. So they return virtually everyone from a team with 1 conference loss. WM has had a hard time getting kids to stay out over the past 4 or 5 years consistently and it's showing in their Senior #'s the last few yrs. Baseball is about 8th on the list of priorities with their kids it seems. Only 1 player on their baseball team has earned all-state or all conference in any other sports, and WM has A LOT of other kids with such honors walking the halls. The Ferch kids aren't playing this year either.

If WM had all their kids playing, they'd be a serious threat state wide. I can think of 6 or 7 kids (at least) that would be starting or contributing heavily this year and 3 or 4 could be very good pitchers. That would be fun to see. WM will still be able to be competitive with pitching & defense despite their lack of seniors. The kids who will play, now have experience and they will have a nice infield and 4 arms, maybe even 5-6 arms that can get people out, at least in this conference. Their weakness will be hitting. Particularly down the order. Like many teams, the new bats will also impact their ability to score.



Lastly, I wouldn't pay ANY attention to some of these teams statistics. It's a joke. In particular RBI's are inflated dramatically for some. Batting average is too for several teams. You can probably thank BCLUW for this from a few years ago giving hits and RBI's on almost every at bat that someone made contact or scored. It was absolutely ridiculous. Unfortunately, post season honors are based on these so a couple other programs started following suit to keep up.....
 
Two big games this week

Tuesday Gladbrook Reinbeck @ West Marshall
Thursday South Tama @ East Marshall
 
In regards to WM. If they still had Coach Zeller, those talented kids would be out.

BCLUW has a great head coach in Zoske. The school has very little talent in the Jr/Sr classes (ex football & basketball teams were horrible) as they have been a cross country/track school for the past decade.

I think South Tama will be a top team in the league. It's tough to stay down when the school is twice the size as the rest of the conference schools.

EM will eventually break through. Much like BCLUW, they have a solid coach in Allen, but just don't have a lot of talent to work with right now.
 
Why did Zoske ever leave Webster City for BCLUW, I can understand leaving North Tama as going to Webster City would be a new challenge, but coming back to BCLUW seems a little strange.
 
>"EM will eventually break through. Much like BCLUW, they have a solid coach in Allen, but just don't have a lot of talent to work with right now."

1) Allen isn't the coach any more
2) Don't underestimate. Not a lot of talent? I suppose beating Ogden Saturday was a complete fluke? That game started with a freshman pitcher and freshman catcher followed by an 8th grade pitcher. Ahead 8-4 going into the bottom of the 7th until the 8th grade pitcher gave up a couple runs and Wolken was brought in to close out the final 2 outs. 11 of 15 at-bats produced runs on Saturday.

They may be young, but there most certainly is talent there and they are incredibly well-coached. Anybody that plays E-M better bring their 'A' game.

And that's why they play the game.
 
Gladbrook-Reinbeck @ West Marshall was a great game tonight. West Marshall won 3-2.

Brady Billerbeck pitched for GR & Jared Riemenschneider for WM. Both threw excellent games. Billerbeck is a very solid HS pitcher and was dominant for a good portion of the game. Jared threw a complete game 2 hitter for the win. Both of GR's runs were unearned as WM got a little sloppy early in the game.

Interesting note in the game for the go ahead and winning run for WM. WM is really young, particularly the lower part of their line up. They were down 2-1 in the 5th, WM has a freshman draw a walk, they then bring in an 8th grader to pinch hit who proceeds to have a great at bat and eventually works a walk. Next up is a freshman who gets down 2 strikes and then doubles down the 3rd base line to score both runs to take the lead.


GR is another team on WM's schedule (like FDSE and NP coming up) that has most of their better athletes playing bb although GR doesn't have much depth number wise.

WM has been winning with pitching & defense. They'll need to continue this going forward as runs are a little harder to come by at times. WM has S Hardin Thursday and then a really good, veteran, N Polk team on Friday. On Friday vs NP, WM will probably be throwing a #5 or 6 guy I'm guessing (since Friday is too early for their guys who threw Monday to come back) It will also depend on who has to relieve on Thursday, since they will have had 2 conference games and the FDSE tourney this week already.

Tough schedule to start the season but being 4-1 at this point is not too shabby and playing better competition will only help them down the road. Hopefully, they can pick up a win against a S Hardin team that should be improved and see what happens throwing a lower tier guy vs a really good NP squad.
 
BCLUW 11 South Hardin 10 (BCLUW scores 7 in 7th to win game)
East Marshall 10 AGWSR 0 (Bloom strikes out 12 in 2 hitter)
South Tama 6 Grundy Center 0 (Trojans strand at least 10 on base)
 
Grundy center beat gladbrook last night? So now GR is 0-2 I believe if that is correct..

This might shape up to be a pretty interesting conference race between E & W Marshall, GR and S Tama (who does look much improved)
 
Big couple weeks in NICLW play

Tonight:

E Marshall @ Gladbrook
W Marshall @ BCLUW
AGWSR at South Tama
S Hardin Grundy Center


If EM can get by GR, it might eliminate GR from any possible contention. 3 losses already would be difficult to overcome.

EM will get a chance to show how good they are in the next week as well. They have beaten a couple teams that have had good starts. Ogden appeared to have thrown a freshman vs EM who doesn't appear to be in their top 3 in rotation so I'm not sure what this victory says yet. I also think Ogden isn't as good as advertised.

EM split with Roland Story who has had a good start. RS did throw a sophomore against EM.


WM & BCLUW will be interesting. BCLUW has a good start but their competition has been questionable. They lost to Saydel 10-0 who is the best team they've played. They did beat Nevada but I don't think Nevada has much pitching after their top guy and they didn't see Cross. Not to mention they only beat S Hardin by 1 and believe they scored 7 runs in the last inning to do it.

WM has played several pretty good teams and played with them. They had FDSE no hit through 2 outs in the 5th and were only down 4-3 going into the 7th. they were ahead of N Polk 2-1 in the 4th before falling apart a little. Vs FDSE's, WM saw Flattery and vs N Polk they saw Pickard on the hill. They also beat Billerbeck from GR so they've seen some good pitching already. EDITED to add that WM had 3 different starting pitchers against FDSE, NP & GR respectively.



They'll need to continue to get good starting pitching this week and play good D. They've had a couple moments where their youth has shown defensively and the lower part of their lineup will need to produce. Their pitching depth will be tested this week as they play every night.




Tuesday's Conference Games


AGWSR at West Marshall

East Marshall at South Hardin

Grundy Center at BCLUW

South Tama at Gladbrook-Reinbeck

S Tama and GR will be a big game as well. S Tama could really help themselves out and set up for a really big next week. Depending what happens tonight with GR & EM, this game will have a lot of meaning in the conference race. GR might be simply trying to be the spoiler.


Wednesday

WM @ S Hardin

Thursday

BCLUW @ E Marshall
WM @ Grundy Center

Friday

GR @ AGWSR
S Tama @ S Hardin

This post was edited on 6/4 1:45 PM by terrehawk
 
RE: the EM vs. Ogden game where Ogden threw a freshman. Ogden started a Jr. and EM scored 5 off him and then they scored 3 off a freshman. EM started a freshman (gave up 3 runs) followed by an 8th grader (also gave up 3 runs) It was EM's 6th game in 4 days, so they were well down in their pitching rotation. Just clarifying.
 
Pink, I see from your post in the quikstats thread that we agree on the bogus stat keeping. Both our teams play 2 of the biggest culprets this evening. Interested to compare notes after tonight and when stats r posted....
 
When everything is posted to quikstats I'll most certainly compare with what I have to see how it looks. I see errors show up on our own team sometimes, but I don't think it's intentional because I've seen errors to the detriment of the player sometimes as well.
 
Was at WM-BCL game. Pitchers duel for first few innings. WM hit a bases loaded double to score 3 and it seemed to break the game open. Both pitchers threw well. BCL took their pitcher out in the 5th (I think) and tried a couple of guys that weren't very good. WM scored a lot late. I was thinking it was 13-1, but maybe you're right, maybe it was just 12. The game went the full 7.
 
South Tama-AGWSR game was ugly, STC won 16-9 after being up 8-1 after the 1st. Trojans walked quite a few, the Koch kid came in the 5th and shut the door in the last 3 innings .
 
Just looking at the conference composite and comparing stats. It looks like there are 4 teams that have around 95% as many RBIs as runs scored. The rest have around 80, which is about right. I'd never really looked at it before. Everyone looks as though they are right about the same with about equal number of hits and runs. I don't know if I would say that everyone is accurate about what they are doing, but everyone seems to be on the same page when you compare hits and runs scored. The only thing that stood out to me was team BA, that one team has a much higher BA than everyone else, but they've played some pretty lopsided/short games, so that can be expected. It should drop after tonight. They only had 4 hits and none after the 3rd.
 
For your chewing pleasure...


EMABRHBIGRABRHBI
Dakota Wolken4120Parker Bolt SR3000
Dalton Beadle ? ? ? ? 3 ?0 ?0 ?0 ?Joe Zimmerman JR ? ? ?3 ?0 ?0 ?0 ?
John Bloom. ? ? ? ? ? ?2 ?0 ?1 ?1 ?Brady Billerbeck SR ? 1 ?1 ?0 ?0 ?
Josh Wilson ? ? ? ? ? 4 ?0 ?0 ?0 ?Jacob Smoldt JR ? ? ? 3 ?0 ?0 ?0 ?
Ryan Puumala ? ? ? ? ?0 ?0 ?0 ?0 ?Austyn Smith SR ? ? ? 3 ?0 ?0 ?0 ?
Nick Mommer ? ? ? ? ? 2 ?0 ?0 ?0 ?Trevor Trunck JR ? ? ?3 ?0 ?0 ?0 ?
Cole Harre ? ? ? ? ? ?2 ?0 ?0 ?0 ?Austin Charley SR ? 3 ?0 ?0 ?0 ?
Nick Long ? ? ? ? ? ? 2 ?0 ?0 ?0 ?Cobren Bird SR ? ? ? ?2 ?0 ?0 ?0 ?
Lance Steward ? ? ? ? 3 ?1 ?1 ?0 ?Jordan Rickert SR ? ? 2 ?0 ?1 ?0 ?
TOTALS ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 22 ?2 ?4 ?1 ?TOTALS ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 23 ?1 ?1 ?0

E-M 000 020 0 -- 2 ?
G-R 000 000 1 -- 1 ?

LOB--EM 8, GR 3
ERR--Nick Mommer, Dakota Wolken. 2B--Lance Steward, John Bloom
HBP--Ryan Puumala, Brady Billerbeck SR
SACF--John Bloom
SB--Josh Benzing, Dakota Wolken

EM IP H R ER BB SO HR
John Bloom 7 1 1 1 1 12 0
GR
Brady Billerbeck SR 6 3 2 2 7 10 0
Jacob Smoldt JR 1 1 0 0 0 1 0

PB--Ryan Puumala, Brady Kuehl FR
WP--Brady Billerbeck SR.
BALK--Brady Billerbeck SR
SO--Cole Harre, Dalton Beadle,Nick Long (2), Lance Steward (2), Josh Wilson (4), Dakota Wolken, Trevor Trunck JR, Jacob Smoldt JR (2), Austin Charley SR (3), Cobren Bird SR (2), Austyn Smith SR, Jordan Rickert SR, Joe Zimmerman JR, Parker Bolt SR.
BB--Cole Harre, Dalton Beadle, Ryan Puumala (2), Nick Long, Nick
Mommer, John Bloom, Brady Billerbeck SR.
This post was edited on 6/4 11:19 PM by pinkphantom
This post was edited on 6/4 11:23 PM by pinkphantom
This post was edited on 6/4 11:26 PM by pinkphantom
This post was edited on 6/4 11:28 PM by pinkphantom
This post was edited on 6/4 11:57 PM by pinkphantom
This post was edited on 6/4 11:59 PM by pinkphantom
This post was edited on 6/5 12:02 AM by pinkphantom
 
What's with all the stupid question marks?

Luke, are you reading this? Why can't I use an HTML table to insert a simple box score? It's the only way to make it semi-readable on here since we can't use spaces and it's nearly impossible to use "& nbsp ;" a bunch of times to try to line everything up. Can we get the ability to just insert tables for times like these?
This post was edited on 6/5 12:18 AM by pinkphantom
 
No way he threw 110. Threw 5 innings and faced 11 batters through 3. Doesn't add up. Probably threw more like 80-85.
 
Pink Phantom you Mustangs like to pad your stats don't you. Those runs were unearned. The 3rd baseman had an error when your 1st run scored by dropping the ball. The two runs were unearned buddy.
 
I was surprised to hear he had 110 pitches too but the book guy keeps pretty good tabs on things so not sure. I believe he actually threw into the 6th though as he came out in the middle of the inning after a couple of runs were scored and I was pretty sure the score was something like 7-1. Looking at QS's it looks like there were 3 runs scored in the 6th and think a couple were on him yet. He really started laboring after the 3rd and he had quite a few pitches in the 4th in particular. 1 long inning and a guy can rack up 30-35 pitches pretty easily. Even though you said he might have only faced 11 guys through 3 innings, there were some fairly long at bats and deep counts. I was surprised they went to the pen with their lack of depth and pitch count seemed like a logical reason. I've seen way too many coaches leave kids in way too long and run pitch counts much too high. One kid in our conference was nearly ruined because of it.

Riemenschneider threw a complete game 4 hitter with 12k's, 1 walk and had just over 100 so it actually wouldn't surprise me at all if Cashin had 100 after taking a look at this.
 
GR guy calling out EM guy, Just looked at the WM GR game on quik stats and GR didn't have 6 hits. THEY HAD 2 hits! those other 4 were all errors. Blatant, easy to call errors.

Billerbeck had 2 hits, not 3 and those were the only 2 hits GR had.

This is the kind of crap I'm talking about. Earned runs are a little harder to account for one way or the other.
 
In fact, now that I look at it, they had billerbeck down as ONLY walking 3 batters as well and Bolt had to have more than 2 at bats right?
Also, they have all 3 runs on Billerbeck as unearned!! the 2 runs (see above) that were scored on him went like this. Walk,(freshman)Walk (8th grader) Double (freshman) scoring 2 runs. Those are EARNED RUNS buddy. Pretty sure the other run was earned as well.
This post was edited on 6/5 8:45 AM by terrehawk
 
I knew he threw to 11 hitters in the first 3, because Riemenschneider led off the big 4th inning. WM batted 8 in that inning and 5 in the next inning. That's 24 batters, and while there were some long at bats, there were also quick at bats. Faced 5 in the 6th (new pitcher started with Riem.) and got 2 quick outs. Just don't see how you're getting 110. Not a big deal, just not seeing the total.

I wasn't surprised that they went to the pen, until I was what they brought in. Not much there, but as it's been mentioned, they just don't have many athletes. Definitely a big difference between the two teams in that aspect.
This post was edited on 6/5 9:10 AM by Parker D
 
Tuesday's Conference Games


AGWSR at West Marshall

East Marshall at South Hardin

Grundy Center at BCLUW

South Tama at Gladbrook-Reinbeck

The big one here is ST & GR. I'm guessing Bolt will throw for GR? After looking at QS's he threw on Friday so he may not throw on 3 days rest. At least he probably shouldn't.

I actually could see GR pulling this one out either way. Having lost 3 one run games, they are kind of due. They are likely out of the conference race with 3 losses but could take the spoiler mentality.
 
lil, what are you talking about? I'm not even the official scorekeeper. I have no idea how they scored that. If you think I'm only interested in padding stats, you're sorely mistaken. I just call things the way I see them and I'm just posting stuff in here for the betterment of the forum so you guys can see what happened during the game.

If it was a GR batter, I would have scored it the same way. If it's a clean hit at a third baseman and he mishandles it, yes, it's an error. If he has to run full tilt and the pitcher does too to try to get it, and they both are going after it and something like that happens, it's an infield hit. An error is defined as something that should be able to be handled with reasonable effort. *I* didn't believe that could be handled with reasonable effort. Frankly I'm a little surprised you're so interested in giving your GR guy an error, when I didn't. Again, I'm not the official scorekeeper.

Second, that has nothing to do with the first run scoring as his attempt was to get the runner out at first. The run was scoring no matter what as there was still zero outs at the time. So our leadoff hitter hits a double and you're trying to explain to me that there were zero earned runs that inning? Really? Are Billerbeck's stats that important to you? Are you Billerbeck's dad? (BTW, I really enjoyed his comment when he threw a wild pitch and our runner went from second to third and rounded third and he said "Try it." That was classy.)

Now to address your "you EM guys must like padding your stats" comment. One example. My son (in my opinion) hit a single in one of our games earlier in the year. He hit it towards first base, the first baseman had to move towards second to field it. The ball took a weird hop causing him to mishandle it. Because of the bad hop I scored it a hit but on quikstats they did not give him the hit. OUR OWN TEAM scored that an error and to me it wasn't a question. So if we are so interested in padding our stats, why was it put into quikstats as a non-hit? I assure you, I or we have no interest in padding our stats. In fact, we have 2 books going at all times and the books are always compared before stats are tabulated.

Some people get their panties in a bunch a little too easily these days.

Good luck with South Tama tonight.
 
You're pathetic dude. You must be that punk sitting right next to the fence with that fancy ipad or Bloom's dad with the radar gun. You want to know who I am. I'm Blaine Jewitt, the long time voice of the Rebels and have seen many games played in my day. No kid hit a double, it was a single that went under the right fielder's glove. Also, you uneducated individual, when the 3rd baseman drops the ball trying to throw the ball home, it is an error. Keep it real dude.
 
If it had hit him in the glove and he bobbled it or mishandled it, then yes, it would be a single with an error. It didn't even touch him. It's not my fault your right fielder took a bad angle. Either way you slice that, it's not an error. I'm sure your right fielder would enjoy the fact that you're trying to argue that he had an error and I'm saying he didn't. Either way, it's a base hit. Who really cares if it's a double or a single and an error? Either way, he ended up at second. I don't care HOW he got there. He got there. Period.

Long time voice of the Rebels maketh you an expert I see...dude. Perhaps you forgot I'm just posting stuff on here FOR FUN...dude! Do you think I honestly care what you think? (I don't btw.) It sounds to me like someone is a sore loser and is just looking for things to complain about, since you guys didn't get enough complaining in last night during the game.

You got any other EM folks you'd like to take some pot shots on here? Who else did you see last night that you would like to mock online?

BTW, I won't resort to name-calling or belittling others like you do. That's classless.
 
I'll just say that based on what I've seen over the years AND on what I've already seen input for stats (and commented on above, lil-cush, feel free to chime in on the WM GR game stats I mention) I will take the EM guys word for it here. I've not seen anything over time from EM to lead me to believe they are padding stats or making stuff up. On the other hand.....
 
Originally posted by lil-cush:
You're pathetic dude. You must be that punk sitting right next to the fence with that fancy ipad or Bloom's dad with the radar gun. You want to know who I am. I'm Blaine Jewitt, the long time voice of the Rebels and have seen many games played in my day. No kid hit a double, it was a single that went under the right fielder's glove. Also, you uneducated individual, when the 3rd baseman drops the ball trying to throw the ball home, it is an error. Keep it real dude.
Click to expand...

Blaine, are you also the stat guy for Glad/Rein in addition to being the voice of the Rebels?
 
Originally posted by lil-cush:
[1]No kid hit a double, it was a single that went under the right fielder's glove.

[2] Also, you uneducated individual, when the 3rd baseman drops the ball trying to throw the ball home, it is an error.
Click to expand...


I would like a few answers Blaine.

1. As asked elsewhere, are you the official stat keeper for GR?

2. Please address the post above from me questioning GR's posting of stats in the West Marshall game last week.

...........A. GR credited themselves with 6 hits when in fact they only had 2 on the entire evening. Both by Billerbeck (he didn't have 3).
...........B. Billerbeck was listed having 0 earned runs when in fact ALL 3 runs were earned.


3. Since you are close to the program, I'm sure you'll get these "mistakes" taken care of and ensure that going forward they keep better stats. I've seen this happen every year with GR and while I can't confirm it's happening when they play other teams, I can confirm AND have documented it here. They've had a few kids get all conference the last few years that had much inflated stats taking the place of players from other programs with ACCURATE stats. It's a joke. Thanks in advance for your assistance dude.



You claim to be a knowledgeable baseball dude so;


4. Regarding [1] above, if the right fielder had to run a distance for the ball and it slipped under his glove it can still be given a double even though it went under his glove. Pink is correct in that the term used is "ordinary effort". The same applies for an infielder as well.

I've seen some errors given to our team over the years that would be scored a hit in MLB. Anyone that has watched much MLB would know that the scorers are VERY generous in giving hits to big leaguers. (I'm all for it but GR seems to be one of those that take it to an extreme when scoring their own players hits)

Regarding [2] above, if you are talking about dropping a relay from the outfield to home you would be incorrect. No error is given on that type of play. That may not be what you are inferring. if not, I apologize.


Otherwise, I'll wait on pins and needles for your response. TIA
 
Any updates on the other games, didn't make it out to a game tonight other commitments.
 
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