I will be a guest on 1620 AM in Pensacola Florida tomorrow at 11 am Eastern time. I will be discussing the first day of the NCAA Tournament while talking about some of the biggest stories in college baseball. Read the rest of this entry »

The College Baseball Blog recently had a chance to sit down with South Florida first baseman Todd Brazeal. We discussed his thoughts on being with the South Florida Bulls and advice for high school student-athletes that want to play at the next level among other things. Read the rest of this entry »

North Dakota head coach Jeff Dodson is transitioning Fighting Sioux baseball from Division II to Division I.

North Dakota head coach Jeff Dodson was hired on June 20, 2008 to transition the University of North Dakota to Division I baseball after the school had spent the previous fifty years competing at the Division II level. Coach Dodson spent the previous five seasons as an assistant coach at Southeast Missouri State, where he was the pitching coach and recruiting coordinator.  The College Baseball Blog had the opportunity to talk with Coach Dodson and ask him about the specific challenges he faces as a first time head coach and with the transition process, the 2009 baseball team and staff, and the future of Fighting Sioux baseball. Read the rest of this entry »

I was invited by Don Munson and Bob Mahony of the Clemson Sports Network to join them for a few innings on Saturday afternoon to discuss the College Baseball landscape. We discussed the development of the Boston College program over the last few years and how the team has become better. It was an excellent experience as both of the them are real professionals and a pleasure to work with. Read the rest of this entry »

Rocky Ward

College Baseball Blog WAC correspondent and bleedCrimson.net editor Sam Wasson recently sat down with New Mexico State head baseball coach Rocky Ward. The Aggie baseball season begins February 20th and Coach Ward provided an update on the team as they ready for the 2009 season. The Aggies completed a successful fall practice season and we have Coach Ward’s thoughts on his team. In this interview he talks about his outfielders.

LF: We’ve moved [Leo] Aguirre from a 1B/DH role to left field. Leo’s not a real good runner, but he’s really really worked hard this fall. He’s cut his 60-yard dash speed by about 4/10ths of a seconds which is practically unheard of. He’s really worked hard, he played there a couple innings last year just to get him in the lineup because late in the year he was just hot. Almost a must have in the lineup guy. We project him going into the year to be the starting left fielder. He’s not going to go take balls off the wall but he’ll catch stuff that he gets to, he throws the ball accurately, breaks well. When you go back and look at his fall statistics he hit .468 with 11 doubles and six home runs, 32 RBIs in 94 at bats.

This is the best offensive fall team we’ve ever put together. Will it become the best offensive spring team in the school’s history? It very well might.
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Coach Hartleb (Courtesy of Illinois Media Relations)

The College Baseball Blog recently had a chance to talk to Dan Hartleb of Illinois. He is entering his fourth season with the Fighting Illini after spending 15 years as an assistant coach at Illinois under Richard “Itch” Jones. Coach Hartleb talks about his expectations for the 2009 squad and some of the hottest topics in College Baseball today. Read the rest of this entry »

John Cole (Courtesy of Penn Media Relations)

The College Baseball Blog is committed to bringing our readers some insight from coaches from around the country. We continue our series of interviews today with Penn’s John Cole. He is currently entering his fourth season in charge of the Quakers program. Last season saw the Penn program finish the season with a 15-23-1 overall record  with a conference record of 6-13-1. They ended up finishing in third place in the Gehrig Division with 8.5 games separating them from the first place Columbia Lions. John Cole came over to Penn after a highly successful six year run at Rowan College in New Jersey. Read the rest of this entry »

Donny Harrel

What was the driving force behind bringing back baseball as a varsity sport at Seattle U.?

Baseball was brought back at SU because our upper campus wanted its once strong sport back in participation. It was actually scheduled to be brought back 3 years from now, but the administration pushed it through and we now have the 4th Division I baseball program in the state of Washington.

Where will you be playing your home games?

We are currently working with the city of Bellevue to create a long term lease to play our home games at Bannerwood Park in Bellevue, Washington.

What will your schedule look like for 2010?

We have a great schedule for 2010. Since we chose to go independent, we were able to pick and choose the teams we will be playing. As of right now, we have Division I opponents UW, WSU, Gonzaga, U. of Portland, U. of the Pacific, Oregon, Oregon State, Dallas Baptist, St. Mary’s, BYU, Nevada-Reno and New Mexico with some scheduling still to go. Read the rest of this entry »

The College Baseball Blog is committed to bringing our readers some insight from coaches from around the nation. We continue our series of interviews with Temple’s Rob Valli. He is currently entering his fourth season in charge of the Temple program. The Owls finished 2008 with a fourth place finish in the Atlantic 10 conference and made their first postseason appearance since 2002. Valli came over to Temple after a highly successful run at Gloucester County College. Read the rest of this entry »

Tracy Smith (Courtesy of IU Media Relations)

The College Baseball Blog recently had a chance to talk to Tracy Smith of Indiana. He is entering his fourth season with the Hoosiers after spending nine seasons with Miami (Ohio) where he won two conference tournament titles. Coach Smith talks about his expectations for the 2009 squad and some of the hottest topics in College Baseball today. Read the rest of this entry »

Tim Sinicki (Courtesy of Binghamton University)

The College Baseball Blog recently had a chance to talk to Tim Sinicki of Binghamton University. He is entering his 17th season with the Bearcats. He has seen the program change from a Division III school into a Division 1 member of the America East conference. Coach Sinicki talks about his expectations for the 2009 squad and some of the hottest topics in College Baseball today. Read the rest of this entry »

Rocky Ward

College Baseball Blog WAC correspondent and bleedCrimson.net editor Sam Wasson recently sat down with New Mexico State head baseball coach Rocky Ward. The Aggie baseball season begins February 20th and Coach Ward provided an update on the team as they ready for the 2009 season. The Aggies completed a successful fall practice season and we have Coach Ward’s thoughts on his team. In this interview he talks about his infielders.

Sam Wasson: Let’s talk about your infield players and who you’re looking at for the upcoming season.
Rocky Ward: At first base Chris Auten’s back. He’s the heir apparent there but a kid named Ben Hardy came in this fall and just absolutely lit it up. If you look at his fall statistics, of course fall stats you’ve always got to take with a little bit of a grain of salt because they’re against yourselves. Ben hit .460 in the fall with 15 home runs, nine doubles and 53 RBIs. That’s about as big a fall as I’ve had out of anybody. It’s a bigger fall than what Billy Becher did or Ryan Kinning, Mark Aranda, any of those guys. The last guy, and we don’t really keep stats for this but Adam Harvey as a junior hit 14 home runs one fall and that was just miraculous. He was the first guy to ever go into double figures in home runs [in the fall] and he turns around and hits eight that year or something. Those are the two guys at first base. Read the rest of this entry »