Closing Thoughts on the WVIAC Baseball Tournament

The 2009 West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference baseball tournament has come and gone, and it's time to clear out the notebook with some final impressions....


Good pitching DOES beat good hitting.
Shepherd cruised to the title on the strength of its pitching staff. Over the four games the Rams played, their team ERA was a stellar 2.50, 1.82 runs a game better than the second-best team, Seton Hill -- which went two-and-out.

Rams' starter Matt McCarty was the star. Going 2-0 in two starts less than 72 hours apart, the senior from Stephens City, VA allowed only nine hits and three earned runs in 13 innings pitched (a 2.08 ERA).
In his first start, McCarty beat Concord, which went into the tournament with a league-leading .364 team batting average. He allowed the Mountain Lions only one run on four hits in six innings, while striking out ten.
In his next start, on two days' rest, McCarty arguably did better. He helped the Rams clinch the championship by limiting heavy-hitting West Virginia State to two runs and five hits over seven innings. (During the regular season, the Yellow Jackets hit .351 and bashed 66 home runs in 39 games.)

Shepherd's pitching neutralized WVSU's hitting in their two tournament matchups. In the Yellow Jackets' three wins in Johnstown (one over Fairmont State and the other two against Davis & Elkins) they totaled 59 hits with a .450 average and six home runs. In their two meetings with Shepherd, State mustered 15 hits, a minuscule batting average of .214 -- and no home runs.

The other way CAN be the best way.
The quirky dimensions of Point Stadium and the prevalent pitching philosophy in college baseball combined to make the park a haven for hitting to the opposite field.

In this aluminum bat-dominated era, most pitchers are reluctant to work the inside corner; a mistake there against a good hitter can lead to disaster. So, most of the better hitters in Johnstown faced a steady stream of pitches on the outside corner.

Right-handed hitters happily pinged pitches off the short porch in right, just 290 feet away, for easy doubles. Meanwhile, lefties battered the 40-foot high "Mesh Monster" fence in left field, where it's only 336 feet to the alley.

Don't expect that hitting approach to change anytime soon.

It's not about us, it's about them.
In an earlier post here on "Inside The Headset" I detailed the problems we had in trying to webcast the games at Point Stadium. While those problems did little to improve our happiness level, and certainly annoyed the fans who couldn't make it to Johnstown, they didn't diminish the teams' experience in Johnstown.

By most accounts, the players enjoyed their time at the tournament. So did the coaches, who appreciated Point Stadium's ability to withstand bad weather and still be playable, which helped the weekend stay essentially on schedule.
The Point's artificial surface and good drainage allows it to quickly recover from rainy weather. Good thing, too, since rain affected just about every day of the tournament.

The proximity of several hotels within walking distance of Point Stadium also aided the teams in their turnaround between games and removed a big logistical concern for the coaching staffs.

So, while it was a pain in the you-know-what for us in our attempt to broadcast the games, and the weather wasn't exactly ideal, it was a largely positive tournament experience for the teams involved. Which is what really matters.


Good help is hard to find....
...but not at Point Stadium. The tournament staff was outstanding from start to finish.

The grounds crew from the City of Johnstown was stellar in getting the field ready in the face of the frequent rain. The athletic training staff from the host school, Pitt-Johnstown, was constantly on call and responded quickly when needed.

Also doing superlative work was UPJ's sports information staff, which handled the official scoring, live stats, public address announcing, etc., and put out any fires that popped up.

A lot of hard work and long days go into planning and running an event like this. The UPJ staff handled it without a hitch.

I'd like to extend my heartfelt thanks and warmest regards to SID Chris Caputo, along with Nikki Babik, Scott Mamula, Elissa Till, Todd Williams, and everyone in the UPJ staff for making my stay in Johnstown so enjoyable. Thanks too to Seton Hill SID Jason Greene for his help.

Thanks again to Reid Amos, "The Voice of the West Virginia Conference," for his yeoman work in troubleshooting the webcast problems and allowing us to broadcast the games that we did.

Thanks as well to WVIAC Associate Commissioner Will Prewitt, who supervised the baseball tournament while also staying on top of the conference softball tournament and track and field meet, and did his usual quality job. Also, Will, thanks for the ride.



I've been invited back to be a part of the tournament next year and am already looking forward to it.
Consider me there.