By: Willie Nicklaus
The highly regarded Class of 2007 was touted as one of the best in recent years by the scouting community, major baseball publications, and all experts alike. Those that opted for college baseball are making the impact predicted by many, including our own Brian Foley, the head man here at the College Baseball Blog. (Our Top Freshmen article from the Pre-season is available here.) Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: 2008 Top Players, ACC, Arkansas, Atlantic 10, Auburn, Big 12, Big East, Boston College, Cal State Fullerton, CBB Column, Elon, Florida, Georgetown, GT, Kent State, LSU, MAC, Miami (FL), Middle Tennessee, Richmond, SEC, Southern Conference, Tennessee, Tennessee Tech, Texas, UNC, West Virginia

FROM CBB NEWS SOURCES

Game 1: Mississippi State 6 Kentucky 5
Game 2: Kentucky 13 Mississippi State 4

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Mississippi State and Kentucky split a Southeastern Conference baseball doubleheader Saturday afternoon at Cliff Hagan Stadium on the UK campus. The Bulldogs rallied from a four-run deficit to take a 6-5 victory in the opener. The Wildcats cruised to a 13-4 victory in the second game. The two teams play the rubber game of the weekend three games series at noon CT Sunday.

MSU saw a three-game win streak snapped in the second game. The Bulldogs are now 14-16 overall and 3-8 in conference play. Kentucky, who lost at home in for the first time this year Saturday, is now 24-5 and 6-5. The 10th-ranked Wildcats are now 19-1 at home this season. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, Florida, Kentucky, LSU, Mississippi State, Ole Miss, SEC, SEC Recap, Tennessee, Vanderbilt

FROM CBB NEWS SOURCES

Alabama 10 Vanderbilt 3

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - Junior right-hander Robert Phares, making his first career Southeastern Conference start, turned in a dazzling performance Sunday afternoon, pitching the University of Alabama baseball team to a 10-3 series-clinching win over No. 4 Vanderbilt at Sewell-Thomas Stadium. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, LSU, Mississippi State, Ole Miss, SEC, SEC Recap, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vanderbilt

FROM CBB NEWS SOURCES

Alabama 9 Vanderbilt 7

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - University of Alabama baseball team scored in six of the eight innings to snap a season-high six-game losing streak with a 9-7 win over fourth-ranked Vanderbilt at Sewell-Thomas Stadium on Saturday afternoon.

Alabama tallied 14 hits in the win, including two by No. 9 hitter Jeff Texada, who also belted his first career Southeastern Conference home run in the sixth inning. Freshman shortstop Josh Rutledge, freshman second baseman Ross Wilson, sophomore left fielder Brandon May and Texada all had two hits each for Alabama. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, LSU, Mississippi State, Ole Miss, SEC, SEC Recap, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vanderbilt

FROM CBB NEWS SOURCES

Vanderbilt 2 Alabama 1

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Sophomore southpaw Mike Minor struck out a career-high batters in a complete game 2-1 win over Alabama Friday night at Sewell-Thomas Stadium.

Vanderbilt improved to 14-4 overall and 3-1 in the SEC, while Alabama dropped to 9-11 and 0-4 in league play.

Minor (3-1) struck out a career best 12 batters while allowing just an unearned run on eight hits in his second complete game of the season. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, LSU, Mississippi State, Ole Miss, SEC, SEC Recap, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vanderbilt

Tennessee 7 Louisville 6

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - A rally by the University of Louisville baseball team fell short Wednesday, as the No. 30 Tennessee Volunteers edged the Cardinals 7-6 on a chilly evening at Jim Patterson Stadium.

For the first time this season, Louisville (9-6) has lost consecutive games.

A two-run home run by Vols (13-5) centerfielder Kentrail Davis hit a two-run home run in the top of the first to give UT a 2-0 lead. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Big 12, Big East, Big South, Big Ten, Coastal Carolina, Illinois, Kansas, Louisville, Oklahoma, SEC, South Florida, Tennessee, UNC-Wilmington

The CBB will be providing you with predictions for the SEC during the 2008 season. This is the opening weekend of the deepest conference in the nation. Can Vanderbilt replace Price? Is South Carolina any good with a loss to Yale? There are many questions so stay tuned throughout the year. The marquee series of the weekend is South Carolina visiting the Vanderbilt Commodores. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, LSU, Mississippi State, Ole Miss, SEC, SEC Weekend Preview, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vanderbilt

Northeastern 5 Bowling Green 0

Sophomore Sheldon McDonald threw eight shutout innings of five-hit, nine-strikeout ball and did not walk a batter, as he led the Huskies to a 5-0 win over the Western Michigan Broncos on Wednesday afternoon at IMG Academies in BRadenton, Fla. Western Michigan entered the game having scored at least 15 runs in three of its last five games, but McDonald kept the Bronco bats silent all afternoon. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Alabama, Atlantic 10, Bethune Cookman, Big East, Big South, Bowling Green, CAA, Eastern Kentucky, Evansville, James Madison, Kentucky, Liberty, Louisville, MAC, Missouri Valley, Northeastern, Ohio Valley Conference, Old Dominion, Rutgers, South Florida, Southland Conference, Sun Belt, SWAC, TCU, Temple, Tennessee, Texas State, Troy

I will be providing recaps of each game as the weekend goes along. Up first today was the Rice Owls and the Oklahoma Sooners.

Rice freshman Chad Mozingo went 3-for-4 with a double, three runs scored and an RBI and sophomore pitcher Ryan Berry was sharp on the mound to lead the ninth-ranked Rice baseball team to a 7-2 victory over Oklahoma in the opening game of the Houston College Classic Tournament Friday afternoon at Minute Maid Park in downtown Houston.

The Owls collected 12 hits and scored in five of the nine innings on the way to the team’s fourth-straight win of the season. While the Blue & Gray chipped away for single runs in four of the frames, Berry scattered five hits and three walks in 6.2 innings of work. The right-hander from nearby Humble, Tex., matched his season-high with eight strikeouts to move to 1-0 on the young season.

Rice Owls recap 

Oklahoma Sooners Recap 

To keep track of the Texas Tech and the University of Houston game just click on the live link for game updates.

http://livestats.www.collegesports.com/livestats/data/m-basebl/609932/top.html

Tags: Houston, Oklahoma, Rice, Tennessee, Texas, Texas Tech

Lance Lynn of Ole Miss picked upwhere David Price left off in 2007, representing the SEC as one of the nation’s most starters. Lynn struckout the first 8 batters en route to a 5IP, 2H, 12K performance in Ole Miss’ 8-1 win over Minnesota.

Meanwhile UGA won a slugfest over Arizona (raked #1 by some publications) after beating up preseason All-American Preston Guilmet. Josh Fields impressed with a HR and the big save. Fields is this correspondent’s 1st Team Preseason AA closer.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Florida, Georgia, Ole Miss, SEC, SEC Recap, Tennessee, Vanderbilt

FROM CONFERENCE PRESS RELEASE
The Vanderbilt Commodores are predicted to repeat as the 2008 Southeastern Conference baseball champions, as voted by the league’s 12 baseball coaches in the 17th annual preseason SEC poll.

The Commodores, ranked as high as No. 3 nationally in the preseason polls, seek to capture their fifth SEC Championship, having also won titles in 1973, 1974, 1980 and 2007. Vanderbilt returns eight position starters and four pitchers from their 2007 squad which also won the SEC Tournament and earned the National No. 1 Seed in the NCAA Tournament. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: 2008 Conference Preview, 2008 Season Preview, Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, LSU, Mississippi State, Ole Miss, SEC, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vanderbilt

Our good friends over at Sons of Sam Malone wrote up a great article previewing the 2008 Tennessee Volunteers. They will be lead by a new coach in Todd Raliegh who will only have the services of three seniors. The full post is available by clicking here.

Tags: 2008 Season Preview, SEC, Tennessee

A very nice article from The FSView and Florida Flambeau (Student paper of FSU) about Tony and Rod Delmonico coming over to the Florida State program this year after leaving Tennessee after his Rod was fired as the head coach. Tony is expected to start for the Seminoles at shortstop or second base. Rod will serve this season under Mark Martin Sr. as a volunteer assistant coach after being with the Seminoles as the top assistant/recruiting coordinator in the late 80’s. The full article is available here.

Tags: ACC, FSU, SEC, Tennessee, Transfers

CSTV editor Doug Kroll checks in with an article previewing the top freshmen in the country. He ranks Matt Harvey of North Carolina as the best freshmen entering the season. Harvey was rated as a first round pick before the 2007 MLB Draft but his stock slipped when his ties with Scott Boras came up. He ended up getting drafted in the third round by the Angels but decided to head to Chapel Hill to play with Mike Fox. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: 2008 Top Players, ACC, Big 12, Big East, Big West, Cal State Fullerton, CSTV, Doug Kroll, GT, Kent State, Miami (FL), Notre Dame, Oregon State, SEC, Tennessee, Texas, UNC

CSTV Editor Doug Kroll checks in with his weekly article about some of the off-season coaching moves.  The biggest move was George Horton heading to Oregon to restart the Duck program. This set off a chain reaction as UC-Irvine head coach Dave Serrano went to Fullerton while former USC coach Mike Gillespie came out of retirement to take over the UC-Irvine job. He also talks about Kevin O’Sullivan who took over Florida after being an assistant with Clemson, Turtle Thomas went down to Florida International from Arizona State where he was a longtime assistant, and finally with Todd Raliegh taking over Tennessee after being the head coach at Western Carolina. The full article is available here.

Tags: ACC, Arizona State, Big West, Clemson, CSTV, Doug Kroll, FIU, Florida, Oregon, SEC, Southern Conference, Tennessee, UC-Irvine, Western Carolina