Tourney wins for Brownsburg and Ball State

The Brownsburg baseball team started off slowly in their sectional game against Ben Davis, falling behind 1-0 after 5 innings. But, a three-run 6th inning that included a hard slide into home and RBI singles by Justin Hartnagel and Joel Stucker lit a fire under the Bulldogs. From that inning on, players and coaches from the opposing teams were jawing at each other. Players were taunting opponents and coaches were yelling at opposing coaches. Brownsburg took that fire and turned it into a 7 -run 7th inning, led by a Tyler Hampton 2-run homer. The final score was 10-2. Macklin Runyon threw a gutsy 6-2/3 innings to get the win. Brownsburg will face Pike in the second game on Monday, following the 10am game between Tech and Avon. The winners of those two games will play Monday night at 7pm in the sectional championship.

The Ball State baseball team scored a touchdown and two field goals in beating Ohio 13-10. Zach Dygert led a strong offense, going 5-for-5 with a double, a homer , a walk, 3 RBI and 4 runs scored. The team had 18 hits and 3 home runs. They will play Bowling Green in an elimination game this morning at 9am. If they win, they play Central Michigan at 4pm. If they keep winning, the Cardinals will play 2 games on Saturday.

Ball State baseball has a bad start, but the basketball team gets good news

The Ball State baseball team lost to Bowling Green 6-4 in the first round of the MAC tourney. The loss moves them to the losers bracket where they will play Ohio at 1230p this afternoon in an elimination game. The Cardinals will have to win 5 straight games to win the tournament. In Wednesday's game, Bowling Green scored 4 runs in the third inning off of BSU sophomore Perci Garner. Garner threw 7 innings and gave up 5 earned runs. BSU scored two runs in the 5th and two more runs in the 7th to cut the lead to 5-4, but could not get any closer. Blake Beemer had 2 hits and 2 RBI to lead the offense.

The BSU basketball team has been invited to play in the Great Alaskan Shootout this November in Anchorage. The teams in the tournament include Arizona State, St. John's, Drake, Houston Baptist, Southern Utah, Washington and Weber State.

NCAA baseball seeding predictions

With most of the major conference tourneys starting this week, I thought I would give one last seeding projection for the NCAA baseball tournament:

I see the teams in four distinct groups:

Seeds 1-5

1. Arizona State
2. Virginia
3. Texas
4. Coastal Carolina
5. Florida

These five teams are clearly above the rest of the nation. They are the top 5 in the polls and in the RPI.

Seeds 6-8

6. Louisville
7. UCLA
8. Georgia Tech

These three teams are all ranked between 6-10 in both the RPI and the polls. Georgia Tech has a chance to move up a few notches if it can win the ACC tournament. Louisville must win the Big East to stay in this group.

Seeds 9-13

9. Cal-State Fullerton
10. Miami (FL)
11. South Carolina
12. TCU
13. Arkansas

TCU will need to win the Mountain West if it wants to stay in this group as it's RPI of 21 may not be enough to get a seed otherwise. CSF already has the automatic bid from the Big West and plays a 29-24 CS-Northridge team this weekend. Taking two of three would solidify their placement in this group. Miami, South Carolina, and Arkansas need to win two games in their conference tourneys to stay in the 9-13 seeds.

14-16 seeds, plus two bubble teams

14. Florida State
15. Auburn
16. Oklahoma
Bubble #1 Vanderbilt
Bubble #2 Clemson

A win or two in the conference tourneys will get these teams seeded.


My team, the Ball State Cardinals, plays Bowling Green in the first game of the MAC tourney at 9am this morning. With a RPI of 107 and a record of 26-27, BSU needs to win the tourney to get a chance in the big dance.

The softball season ends

The Brownsburg softball team lost to Ben Davis last night 4-1, ending the season with a 9-20 record. The good thing is that most of the team returns next year. Seniors Nicki Meidinger (.378 avg, 3 HR), Janikka Tillotson (.263 avg, 39 IP), and Chelsea Terrell (.250 avg) will graduate. However, a strong JV team and an undefeated freshman team will look to fill those spots on the roster.

The summer lull....

It's that time of year when the high school and college teams aren't playing everyday due to end-of-season tournaments, so there isn't too much to write about every day...

Brownsburg softball - Won the Crawfordsville Invitational over the weekend by beating Crawfordsville and Scecina. Their record is now 9-19. They play 6th-ranked Ben Davis (25-4) tonight in the sectional tournament at Pike. BD beat Brownsburg 9-2 earlier in the year....and tonight's score may be similar.

Brownsburg baseball - Plays Ben Davis on Thursday in the sectional tournament at Brownsburg. Brownsburg is 22-6 while Ben Davis is 15-9. Brownsburg beat BD 16-5 very early in the season.

Ball State baseball - Plays Bowling Green in the MAC tournament at 9am on Wednesday. BSU is the #4 seed. The Cardinals took two out of three against the Falcons earlier this year, scoring 45 runs in the three games, including a 32-10 blowout in game two of the series.

A very disappointing week comes to an end

Brownsburg baseball - The team started the week with a 1 game lead in the conference with 4 games remaining. However, the Dogs lost 3 in a row before salvaging a victory against Fishers on Saturday afternoon. Brownsburg finished the regular season 22-6 overall and 12-6 in the conference. Westfield won the conference with a 13-5 record. Hamilton SE was tied for second with Brownsburg. The Bulldogs starts sectional play on Thursday against Ben Davis. The sectional will be hosted by Brownsburg.

Ball State Softball - The BSU softball team was eliminated from the NCAA tournament after a 5-1 loss against Louisville. BSU started off well, taking a 1-0 lead after two innings. However, single runs by Louisville in the 3rd and 4th innings gave them a 2-1 lead. Things stayed that way until the 7th when Louisville added three more runs for the final margin. The final four Louisville runs were all unearned as BSU made three errors during the game. BSU finishes the season with a 43-16 record and it's second NCAA tournament appearance.

Ball State Baseball - a Ball State win against Toledo would give them the #1 seed in the MAC tourney, and for 7+ innings it looked like that was going to happen. BSU took a 7-3 lead into the bottom of the 8th inning when Toledo scored two runs off of Brad Piatt (who has struggled all season.....I have no idea why he was even pitching at all). So, BSU took a 7-5 lead into the bottom of the ninth inning when Toledo led off with a solo home run then followed that with two unearned runs, including a sac fly to end the game. BSU finished the regular season with a 28-27 record overall and 19-8 in the MAC. They finished 3rd in the MAC West and will be the #4 seed in the MAC tourney. They play #5 seed Bowling Green at 9am on Wednesday.