Ken Williams Jr. has been ruled ineligible for the season for academic reasons. The full article from the Wichita Eagle is available here.

The Wichita fans are also talking about it which is linked here.

The Kansas Jayhawks will be making the long flight to Hawaii-Hilo for a weekend series to open the Jayhawk season. Kansas is coming off a Big 12 championship and accumulated 43 wins. Ritch Price is entering his 5th season with Kansas and hopes to continue his recent success.

KU Game Notes

The Tallahassee Democrat continues the coverage of the Florida State baseball team focusing on Micheal Hyde and the FSU starting pitching staff. The Seminoles had some issues last year with the third weekend starter as no one could hold down the spot. This season they also have to replace the number 2 starter in Tyler Chambliss. The full article from the Democrat is available here.

The Tampa Tribune also has an article about Mark Martin chasing the only thing he doesn’t have an NCAA championship. The article is very brief and can be read here.

The Southern Miss Baseball Team is in the process of fixing up Pete Taylor Park to update it to become one of the top facilities in the country. The project will not be finished until June of 2007. The Hattiesburg American has checked in with head coach Corky Palmer to get his thoughts on the reconstruction here.

Conference USA is continuing the series of previews on different teams in the conference and they focused today on the Memphis Tigers. The Tigers are led by head coach Daron Schoenrock who is entering his 3rd season at the helm of the Tigers program. He has compiled a 45-70 record in his two seasons but won 32 games last season. The Memphis offense will be led by senior first baseman Adam Amar who hit .395 with ten homers last season. The full preview of the Tigers is available here.

I started this site a few years ago as a side project. I started attending a bunch of games last season at Boston College when they joined the ACC and recognized that College Baseball is where it is at. I was there when Florida State came in when the temperatures were in the low 40’s and they were complaining about the weather. I have had some great chances to meet some powers in the baseball world just by attending games and running this website. I even have an opportunity to attend a college showcase this summer if I want because the owner of the showcase found my site. I have gotten over 6,000 hits in the month of January and expect those numbers to go up as the season goes on. I would also like to thank some of my loyal readers who have posted the site in some forums. As always, I love to hear from readers or even coaches as I know you’re reading the site so feel free to email me here.

I would like to also encourage the readers to click on the advertisements as it is not easy to run this site on my own and spending five to six hours a day looking up stories.

The Patten Lions knocked off the Saint Mary’s Gaels on Tuesday by a score of 13-11 in seven innings due to darkness. The Gaels used nine pitchers in the game and three of them did not record an out but gave up 3 runs a piece. It looks from the box score that Saint Mary’s was using this game to test out some of their younger pitchers. Saint Mary’s was led by Kyle Jensen who went 3-4 with three RBI and Anthony Alliotti who went 2-3 with a run batted in.

Saint Mary Recap

The USC Trojans knocked off Cal-Poly tonight 6-4 to give Chad Kreuter his first career victory as the Head Coach of the Trojans. USC knocked around the Mustang starter Steven Fischback who lasted 2 innings while giving up all 6 runs (all earned) to the Trojans. Lucas Duda gave the Trojans a 6-1 lead in the second inning by hitting a three-run homer. The Mustangs were able to chip away at the lead but would not get closer then 6-4. Kyle Smith went 3-5 with two RBI’s and Grant Desme also got two hits and drove in two runs to lead the Mustangs.

Robert Stock (USC) in his first career game was held hitless for USC. He has been signed already by the Cotuit Kettlers for the CCBL.

USC Recap
Cal Poly Recap
Daily Trojan Recap (Updated on 1/31)

The Jacksonville Dolphins opened the season tonight with a 6-3 victory of the Florida A&M Rattlers. The dolphins pitching staff used a team effort to get through the game by using five pitchers. The only pitcher to stand out was Justin Young who pitched the ninth where he struck out two out of the three batters his faced. Jacksonville had two hit performances from Pete Clifford and Mike McCallister who really did minimal damage. On the other hand, Ryan McArdle did the most damage on the day by going 2-4 with three RBI’s. Anthony Mazzeo led the Rattlers with two hits and drove in one run to be the only bright spot in the lineup.

Jacksonville recap
FAMU recap
Tallahassee Democrat Article

The Dons of San Francisco will be visiting Fresno State this weekend to open the season for both schools. San Francisco made the NCAA tournament where they lost to Miami, then knocked off the hosts Nebraska, then bowed out to Manhattan.

Fresno State also made the NCAA tournament last season but made the Regional Championship game at Cal State Fullerton. They were not able to get by the Titans but won 45 games which was the highest total since the 1988 season.

The pitching match ups this weekend will be very interesting. Friday night San Francisco will be starting Aaron Poreda while the Bulldogs will counter with Brandon Miller. Saturday’s starters will be Jason Dufloth for the Dons and Fresno is planning to start Brandon Burke. The Dons in the final game have lined up Matt Baugh to face an unannounced pitcher.

San Francisco notes
Fresno State notes

The Naval Academy is continuing the series of releases previewing the upcoming season. They focus today on the catchers and the infield. They lost Jonathan Johnson to graduation who was the second team catcher in the Patriot League last season. They return a large percentage of their starters in the infield and should be fine there. The full preview is available here.

The Southern Miss baseball program had the opportunity this weekend to get on the field and scrimmage each other. Head Coach Corky Palmer ran his team through a 6 inning scrimmage to get some game action for his players. They will start the season on February 16th hosting Southern Illinois. The full article on the scrimmage from the Hattiesburg American is available here.

Alex Lebow of the Daily Trojan checks in with new USC Head Coach Chad Kreuter on his preparations for the season opener tonight against Cal Poly. The full article is available here.

Kyle Jahner also of the Daily Trojan checks in with another article on the USC Baseball Program. He discusses how much success other athletic programs have had with new head coaches and how he expects the same with the Trojans. Full article available here.

Tallahassee Democrat senior writer Steve Ellis has wrote a season preview for the upcoming season on the Florida State Seminoles. He believes that since the FSU schedule is back loaded that they should be able to have a solid year until May when they play the heart of the ACC in Clemson, Miami, UNC, and GT. The full article is available here.

The Tallahassee Democrat also is reporting junior closer Luke Tucker has been shut down for 3 weeks to rest his shoulder from soreness. Some of my contacts at Florida State have stated that Tucker has not been throwing well since the first day of practice so this is not a huge surprise. Last year, He was shut down on Sunday of a 3 game set at Boston College due to soreness also. Buster Posey is expected to step into the closer role for the first few weekends. The article is available here.

The Sam Houston State Bearkats have received a million dollar donation from former Houston Astros owner Don Sanders. The Bearkats one year old baseball facility will be renamed the Don Sanders Baseball Stadium. The full release from Sam Houston State is available here.