6A Seeding Sweep

MWL 6A Seeding Sweep!

Not only did Thurston, Sheldon and South Eugene sweep their Special District seeding games, but they did it in a big way. 

• Thurston and South Eugene beat their Portland opponents on the road.
• Thurston's big bats clobbered Lincoln 11 to 3.  The Colts are averaging over 12 runs per game in their last 11 games! 
• South took a 5-1 lead in the top of the fourth and held on for a 5-3 road win. 
• In Eugene, Sheldon pounded Redmond 11-1 in five innings.  Redmond didn't look like a #3 RPI team. 

Interestingly, the Thurston - Lincoln game didn't have much impact on the playoff brackets.  Both teams were already assured an automatic berth in the round of 32.  Thurston did move up a couple of spots in the RPI ranking and are currently 3rd.  6A teams still have a few games left, so it's iffy if Thurston will end  up in the top 4.  But it's unlikely they will drop out of the top 8.  Once the 6A teams are whittled down to the final 32, the top four teams will be split up among the four groups of 8, then the 5 through 8 rated teams will be split up.  If Thurston keeps on winning, they won't meet a top 8 team until the quarterfinals.

Sheldon's game had more meaning.  The winner, Sheldon, got an automatic berth to the round of 32.  As the loser, Redmond has to win a play-in game to get to the round of 32.  Sheldon proved what everyone was thinking - Redmond isn't really a #3 RPI team.  It's true, Redmonds high RPI comes on the backs of a lot of games against 5A opponents.  Sheldon's win dropped Redmond to #5 in the RPI.  Redmond will host Century.  Century has an RPI of 36.  That compares to Sheldon's #16 ranking. 

Thurston 2011 Undisputed MWL champs.

The MWL championship trophy stays in Springfield for the fourth year.  The Millers earned it last year, while the Colts won back to back titles in '08 and '09.  It took a nine game MWL win streak by the Colts to close the season to claim the trophy.  Who would have thought this could happen after the Colts were no hit on opening day?  Thurston followed getting no hit by North with a 2 run output against Sheldon, and quickly went 0-2 in league. 

Then came two back to back 9 inning games near the end of the first round.  Thurston won the first against Springfield 2-1 and lost the second to Churchill 3-2.  Since then, it's pretty much been bombs away for Thurston.  The Colts opened the second round with two 7-6 wins, one of them another nine inning game.  Then Thurston ramped up the offense even more in 10-7 and 10-9 wins.  The wins weren't pretty, and they were usually late, but they were wins.  Lately, Thurston's defense has stepped up, allowing just five runs in the last four games.  Seven different Colts homered in league.  A frosh, a soph, four juniors and a senior.  Aye-yi-yi.  Wait'll next year. The Colts had at least six players with 10 rbi's.  Pitching is key down the playoff stretch.  Thurston's pitching has been very good over the last four games.  If pitching regresses, the bats better stay hot.

Thurston is a fun, never-say-die team to watch.  Just about any player can reach the fence, so they are never out of a game and they know it.  If your team gets bumped out of the playoffs early, jump on over to a Colt playoff game.  It'll be worth it.

Marist - North Eugene game

I chose to go to the Springfield at Churchill game because the game would determine seeding order and Kameron Bates and Jake Lessel were scheduled to dual.  I passed up the North Eugene - Marist game because North Eugene and Marist couldn't change their order of seeding even if Marist won.  Plus Marist's Zach Eyster wasn't scheduled to pitch against Andrew Moore.  So I go watch an 8-0 ballgame, while I missed "The best high school game I have ever seen." game. I attended the Sheldon-Redmond game the night after the Churchill-Springfield game.  All I heard in the pre-game chatter was what a great game the North-Marist game was and that the paper did not do the game justice.  And I thought the paper did a good job with Delaney's catches.  But the fans were saying that there were several tremendous infield plays as well as several double plays. Oh, well, I got some good photos.

Fryback story followup.

For those of you who read the Jim Fryback-kielbasa story in my last blog.... There is no truth to the rumor that after I blogged about Jim that he and fellow Irishman Ted Norman got a ladder and tried to remove the asterisk from the baseball banner in Sheldon's gym.  (The asterisk by 1968 signifies a co-championship with Marshfield)

League stats

I hope to get league stats from most teams this week.  I already have Sheldon's and South's final stats.  I think the unofficial final stats ranking all players are pretty close.  The big exception being missing RBI's from Thurston's 29-1 win over Marshfield.  League unofficial stats all players.  Remember, these are for just the 16 league games.

Photos and donations

I added several more galleries of photos.  Many were when the sun was out, which makes the photo's 'pop'.  I also have a couple of galleries where I typed 'Print at home'.  You won't find any copyright marks on those.  They are just way too dark to sell because or dark, cloudy, muddy conditions.  Remember half of the profits go to your school's booster club.  I am pleased to announce I wrote a check for over 50 bucks to Marist last month.  Typical prices are 4x6 for $2, 5x7 for $3.50 and 8x10 for $6.99.  All photos are guaranteed by the photo service, Smugmug.  You can jump off to your school's gallery from this page.
Photos

Donations.

A couple of minutes ago I just received my first donation!  And for more than my suggestion of $10.  Thanks a million! Well, not quite a million. It brightens up my wife's day when her stay at home husband say's, "Darling, I sold another photo." or "Darling, I received a donation, today."

Facebook page.

I'm not even sure why I am doing this, but I started a Facebook page for the website that you can link to from my home page.   Being an introvert, I don't really understand what the big whoppee is about Facebook.  But I've been told kids will go to the Facebook page before they check the real MWL site, so I'll try it.  I posted a few pictures on it.  Other than that, I'm not sure what I will be posting. If  you know what I should be posting about, let me know.  And can anyone tell me who the Miller is who is falling from the sky into an ocean of grass?  Facebook link

Follow the playoffs on Twitter.

I'll be tweeting the scores during the playoffs. I'll most likely be at the Willamette playin game Tuesday.  A Colt fan texts me Thurston scores that I then tweet out to MWL fans when the Colts play. Same with North.  If you would like to text me scores at 541-337-1311, I can tweet those, too.  I assume that if you get tweets, you can add your game scores to the tweet, but I have no idea how to do that.  Anyway, here's the Tweet page if you want to sign up.  MWL Tweet.  I don't tweet a lot, usually just on game days and if anything big happens, like the Red Sox signing one of our players out of high  school.  Actually, I wouldn't tweet if it were the Sox.  Yankees, Yes.  Red Sox, No.