Pair of One-Hitters Highlights Friday's Action

Usually I don't make a post until after the weekend's games are done, but I felt obligated to do so with the performances that a couple pitching staffs had on Friday (Feb. 27) afternoon. Both Tampa (against Stillman) and UC San Diego (against Cal State East Bay) tossed one-hitters, with UCSD's coming from a single stellar outing, while Tampa had two pitchers combine in their gem.

Running at Full Capacity Starting This Weekend

The Division II landscape should be running at full capacity after this weekend, barring weather concerns, as most teams who have not played yet will begin their season on their spring break. The next couple weeks will be spread throughout the country, as many Northern teams will be traveling to the RussMatt Invite in Florida, Clearwater Invite, or out to Arizona to start their season beginning this weekend.

One notable match-up that we will be denied this week is the four-game set between #10 Emporia State and Central Missouri, as that series has been wiped out due to weather.

Here are some of the notable match-ups for this weekend and early next week:

Not Much Settled Three Weeks in to the Season

More upsets graced the Division II landscape this past week, and nobody knows anything, still. It has been an interesting beginning of the year, with many of the top teams suffering some unexpected losses, even multiple, but then rebounding to balance out their ranking, while teams that were rolling to begin the year are now coming back down to Earth. A few more weeks, and we should have a good idea of where everyone stands, but until then, let's hold tight with what we've got!

Regional Contenders Face Off in Week Three

We head in to the third week of the Division II baseball season, and we are almost running at full capacity now. There will only be a couple notable teams left to hit the field after this weekend.

The D-II baseball world will be denied what would have been the top match-up of the weekend. #9 Grand Valley State was scheduled to head to Evansville to take on #4 Southern Indiana for the second straight year, but some bone-chilling winter weather has wiped that entire series off the docket. That gives the Screaming Eagles some more time to rebound from an emotional opening series with Tampa, and it pushes GVSU's season-opener all the way back to early March when they head to the RussMatt. GVSU will be one of the last teams in the country to kick off its season.

Despite that, there are plenty of huge match-ups taking place this weekend between a bevy of teams who will find themselves in the mix for a spot in their respective regional tournaments.

Tampa Takes Biggest Series So Far; Newcomers Making Noise

Your weekly recap of Division II action is here! My apologies for being a day or so late. Today's post will be a recap of this past week's action, while this week's "preview" will take place on Wednesday or Thursday. I would like to see what kind of rankings Nick Herfordt at Perfectgame.org puts out this week. It will be the first weekly rankings now that a few more teams are starting to hit the diamond. That will probably be the usual schedule going forward. A recap early in the week and a preview after the newest rankings are released.

With that said, here we go in an eventful weekend in the Division II world.

Week Two: An Appetizer to a Big Week

First, a little schedule update going forward. Currently, I plan on posting just once a week in these recap styles. However, once the entire country gets their season started, I plan on putting up multiple posts a week. Right now, it is mostly the southern schools playing and most of the NE/MW teams have not gotten started, and won't until early March. At that time, you can expect more in-depth posts from me.

With that said, we can get in to week two action!

Opening Weekend Produces Some Big Numbers

The 2015 Division II baseball season got underway this past weekend, and although there were no big surprises in the results, we did see that a few teams appear to already be on top of their game.

There were some gaudy numbers put up down south to open the year. #1 Tampa rolled Bentley 5-1, 13-5, 15-2. They will face Georgia College in a three-game set this weekend. The big match-up will come in the weekend after, when defending champion Southern Indiana comes to town.

Introduction to the "Road To Cary" Blog

Congratulations on stumbling upon the newest blog in the world of NCAA Division II baseball. I will be your tour guide on your excursion as we traverse the world of D-II baseball together. It is my belief that Division II baseball does not yet have the media representation that I believe it should. It may never match the attraction given to football, but the talent and competition is there and the success at the next level is there to the point where I believe the star players and complete teams deserve more recognition than they get.

With that said, a little introduction. My name is Kyle Schwerin and I worked in media relations for a couple NCAA Division II institutions in the Midwest Region for seven years, serving as the official scorer and media contact for both schools during my time there. I had the opportunity to be the official scorer at multiple Division II baseball conference tournaments, a Midwest Regional Tournament and had the distinct honor of traveling to Cary for the Division II Baseball National Finals twice, my greatest professional moments so far in my career.

Baseball is my favorite sport and Division II is my favorite level, so here I am now beginning what will hopefully be a successful Division II baseball blog. As someone who has traveled the country watching a plethora of successful Division II baseball programs, I hope to have some good insight to add as the 2015 season begins and I hope to be a resource that people can use to get some information as the season goes on.

I have a healthy respect for what the current media members of Division II baseball currently do, particularly the work of Nick Herfordt, formerly of College Baseball Lineup and now part of Perfect Game USA. I enjoy his analysis of teams in his weekly rankings and believe them to be the most accurate every year. Additionally, his work in the Division II world when it comes to recognition and beginning the Tino Martinez and Brett Tomko Awards are admirable. D2BaseballNews.com is a solid resource for information and I enjoy their composite rankings that are released each week. When it comes to polls and rankings, I will always give my respect to them in this order: Herfordt's weekly list at PG, NCBWA, ABCA, D2BaseballNews. That is not a knock on any particular poll, I just agree more with the methodology that Herfordt uses in his rankings. He is not on the extreme end of the spectrum like I believe D2BaseballNews sometimes is. If Tampa loses three of four in a week, odds are they won't fall out of the top five in any respectable ranking, and I believe Herfordt accurately reflects that. He is even keel, doesn't make overly-reactive decisions, and recognizes the relative talent of baseball in each region.

I figured I would get that all out of the way before we even begin, so everyone knows where I stand. I may begin my own bit of weekly rankings, we'll see, but right now I believe that there are enough ranking lists out there where the market is a little saturated currently and as a whole, they do a great job of painting the D-II landscape accurately.

My goal for this blog is to hopefully put up weekly posts from around the different regions and on a national landscape, point out notable accomplishments, and follow the run to the postseason.

Thanks for reading, and hopefully I will prove to be a valuable resource to the Division II baseball landscape.