D2 schools

Findlay and Ashland are the only D2 schools in Ohio. Ashland has a particularly good baseball tradition -- they were in the D2 World Series a year ago, and always seem competitive. I believe that Northern Kentucky plays with wood bats, which always seemed pretty cool to me.

gametime24:

There are several DII schools in West Virginia that play in the West Virginia Conference and each offers something different. I will go over each one that I know something about but, of course, getting on their website would be the best. In order of my personal baseball preference:

West Virginia State University: A small public college located in Institute, West Virginia. Head Coach for over twenty years is Cal Bailey and long time assistant Sean Lloyd. They play escellent hard nosed baseball and are almost always in the top of the West Virginia Conference. They won the Northeast Regional and were in the College World Series in 2005.

Shepherd College: A private school in the Northeastern part of West Virginia. Don't now much about the coaches and such but they have been in the top of the conference the last few years, usually winning their division. An up and coming DII program.

West Virginia Wesleyan College: Located in Buchannon, West Virginia *North Central West Virginia] it is a private Methodist affilaited school. Randy Tenney is the Head Coach and has been for years. Though they have been in the middle of the pack for a while now, Coach Tenney told me that they are getting baseball scholarship money again and should be back on track for challenging for the Conference Chamionship as they were doing 10 years ago.

Ohio Valley College. Located in Parkersburg, West Virginia [across the Ohio River from Marietta, Ohio] they have been gaining ground rapidly in the conference and last year [2006] won the WVC Championship Tournament and the bid to Regionals.

Concord College in Southern West Virginia is usually competitive, Bluefield State has a coach who, I am told, is a great role model for young men, and Alderson Broaddus has a new coach who has been promised a new field a may be the person to turn that program around.

Hope this helps. PM me with any addditional questions.

TW344

gametime - here's ya some links to a few DIIs. Kentucky Weslyan is in KY and I believe in the same conference as NKU. I don't know anything about the school or it's baseball program.

U of Southern Indiana. I do know a tiny bit about it... my daughter may actually do a visit there. I know it's very reasonable in tuition rates and has great housing available. Academically, it isn't too selective which may be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on what you're looking for. It's in Evansville, IN which is a nice size town... easy to travel around and easy to access off of I64. It is also home of U of Evansville. Itsinthegame has a son there and I'm sure wouldn't mind sharing insight into the program. The field is on campus and sits in a secluded area by some woods... has a neat feel to it I thought! Campus is clean and is bigger than Bellarmine campus (see below). I believe the program has had some success, but Its could tell you in detail I'm sure.

Bellarmine University is in Louisville, KY and is a private catholic school. It is very pricey and a bit more selective in admissions that public DIIs. I don't know a lot about the program recently, but my son did visit there back in HS. It's a nice campus with field on site. Field isn't the best... no lights and needed some work the last time I saw it. The program has struggled, but may be on the upswing... I'm not sure. Housing is nice and school is in a very nice neighborhood and very easy to access off of I64 (those kinds of things are important to your parents! ).

Bellarmine University

University of Southern Indiana

Kentucky Weslyan

Sorry, I'll try again:

NCAA DII Schools

Gametime:

Try Findlay or Tiffin in Ohio. Both are DII. Look up the GLIAC conference. Grand Valley State in Michigan and several others.

Sunshine State Conference - the best DII top to bottom, IMHO...

Sunshine State Conference

The GLVC is also a good conference. My son pitches for Saint Josephs and really enjoys it there. This is a small school in Indiana, with great academics and good mens teams.

If you are looking to go south, consider the schools in the Gulf South Conference. Delta State is usually the best, and Montevallo has really made big strides, advancing to the D-2 World Series in 2006. But, there are alot of other qualty schools such as the U of West Alabama, Ouachita Baptist, North Alabama, Southern Arkansas and West Florida who each won at least 30 games a year ago. The U of Central Arkansas, I believe, has moved to D-1 but there ae several other very competitve programs.

In the Northeast we have the Northeast 10, one of the top Division 2 conferences in the country. It would be remiss of me not to mention St. Michael's College as well, an independent D2 in Vermont.

http://www.psacsports.org/men/baseball.html

Here's an updated D2 link
http://www.stmarytx.edu/athlet...a/index.php?id=state

The info provided on the WVIAC, PSAC, and GLIAC schools is good. Off the top of my head, most of the KY schools are in the GLVC...which is a wood bat conference.

Ohio actually has a bunch of schools transitioning from NAIA to D2. Most of the schools are coming from the NAIA America Mid East Conference. Ohio Dominican, being one of the best. Some of those transitioning from NAIA may have a tough way to go for a few years, others, like ODU will be pretty good from the start.

Lake Erie College is another fairly new D2 school in Ohio. If you have questions about NKU or any of the Ohio schools, let me know...I'm also in the Cincy area and would be happy to assist if I can.

quote:

Originally posted by lhpx2:
Findlay and Ashland are the only D2 schools in Ohio. Ashland has a particularly good baseball tradition -- they were in the D2 World Series a year ago, and always seem competitive. I believe that Northern Kentucky plays with wood bats, which always seemed pretty cool to me.

There's also West Liberty University and Wheeling Jesuit University in WV as far as D2s go. . .stayed @ WLU this summer for Beast of the East, nice dining hall (leave it to me to say that) but I didn't get to see too much of the rest of the school because it was during the summer and we were playing games most of the time. Overall, if you don't mind a 15 min drie in the mountains to get to the campus it's not too bad, I guess.

Check out the Peach Belt Conference.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by The Great One 21:
The info provided on the WVIAC, PSAC, and GLIAC schools is good. Off the top of my head, most of the KY schools are in the GLVC...which is a wood bat conference. .

I went to the GLVC conference tournament last Spring and I can tell you that the GLVC is NOT a wood bat conference!
All D2 may go to wood next year? It was tabled for this coming season.

Thanks for the correction. It has been a wooden bat conference in previous years.

Peach Belt Conference is top flight. Great baseball, entire conference is competitive. League games are always hard-fought, very spirited. Emotions run high and the rivalries are deep. 2 divisions of 6 teams, last year the PBC East had 5 of their 6 ranked in the national top 20 at one time or another during the season. Quality of play is very similar to the SoCon in D1, just not as much team/pitching depth. Can't go wrong playing in this league whether it's Savannah Ga, Florence SC, Pembroke NC, St Augustine Fla. or any of the other 8 school locations.

My son played at Northern Kentucky University this past summer in a tournament, nice school, nice field. We were told by NKU staff they are moving up to D1 next spring.

quote:

Originally posted by fivehole:
My son played at Northern Kentucky University this past summer in a tournament, nice school, nice field. We were told by NKU staff they are moving up to D1 next spring.

I was surprised to hear that so I checked to see if their schedule was out for next year. It is and it is still D2. Maybe they meant 2013.

Why would NKU move to D1 when they aren't even a significant D2? Baseball has 40 D2 teams that would consistently wax the bottom 175 teams in D1. No other sport has as much crossover dominance as D2 baseball. Most D1 conferences won't let there members even play D2's anymore because of the expanede NCAA tournament and the potential "damage" to borderline at-large teams getting left out because they got beate 2 out of 3 in an early season non-league game ( that won't help the RPI, either)

Don't know why they would move up, maybe they get more money. But thats what we were told.

Were can you see spring schedules? The web site for son's team still has last seasons schdedule and roster.

Here is there schedule.

And they have been very competitive, overall, the last 10 or so years. They have gone to NCAA D2 tournament 7 or 8 times during that stretch. They are a team that has been mostly ranked in the top 25 during that time.

TW344..I sent you a PM..

I know it has been 6 years since you posted but interested to hear any updates on the West Virginia DII schools. Specifically the TOP 3 in your previous post.

Thanks,
RR23