Southeastern District Games: March 31-April 5 (Week 3)

Big matchups on Monday and Friday!

 

WB at Great Bridge.  Curious to know if Harrelson will throw against WB or Grassfield.  (Neither one counts toward their conference).   I saw that Higgerson got the W against Hickory, but did Harrelson start that game, or did he not pitch?

 

Then on Friday, with GB and GF, to go along with NR and Hickory.  Great matchups in the early going.  Grassfield could start the season 2-4.  Wow!  Of course, after the brutal early season schedule, they could run off a bunch of Ws over the remaining several weeks.

 

I don't think many folks in the area appreciate how difficult it is to go through the SED top half, and make it out without too much damage.

It looks like 3 SED matchups have been rescheduled to tomorrow:

Western Branch at Great Bridge

Deep Creek at Grassfield

Oscar Smith at Nansemond River

 

Funny to think about a WB VS. GB game as meaningless beyond bragging rights. A year ago it would have been an opportunity for WB to open up a gap on GB or for GB to tighten the race for everyone. Twice or sometimes three times a year those games were huge.  Always had electricity because they decided a hard won entry to the State Tournament are now not much more than..... scrimmages. 

 

It is becoming clearer that the regular season has even less meaning than I thought it would in the new format.  Does anyone care if they win a Regular season conference title?  In most of them if you finish in the top 2 it gets you basically the same thing - a semi final gig with one and in scenario.  Throw everything at it to get to the Regional. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I know the monitor Merrimack conference still gives an automatic regional bid for the team that wins the regular season. Not sure about other conferences.

In Conference 18, where NR now resides, there is no automatic qualifier.  Top two seeds get byes in the conference tournament, and otherwise its a free for all.  I've said this before, but I think the most interesting aspect for many of us, is to see how many qualify and how deep the various SED schools go.  At this point you have WB and GF in 6A, GB and Hickory in 5A, and Nansemond River in 4A could all make the postseason, and make a deep run at it.  In years past, they were too busy knocking each other off during the District tournament.  I believe the SED will be very well represented this postseason.  

Western Branch cracks into National Rankings.

 

They are presently ranked No. 40 in the Perfect Game Top 50.

Heels - You make a good point.  The SED has a lot of followers on this board and we do talk it up  but over the last 5 or more years it seems like some very good teams never got out of the district. 

 

A team that comes to mind is the 2011 WB team that finished 2nd in the State in 2010 and returned the entire team but lost the regular season title in the last game to GB.  In the district tournament they lost to NR so they never got out of the district and did not play a State Tournament game.  Something like that is far more unlikely to happen now.    

That is a perfect example to illustrate the strength of the district.  In 2011, Western Branch was the prohibitive favorite (and for good reason).  Instead, both Nansemond River and Great Bridge make it to the state tournament.  NR loses in bottom of 7th to 3rd ranked South County, and then GB beats South County for the State Championship.

This, in a year where WB was the heavy favorite.

 That game against South County may have been the best game I have ever been apart of outside of beating GB for the District Championship.  12-11 ball game, couple calls could have gone either way, but it was a damn good ball game.  Tough one to walk away from.  As far as these new conferences go, I'm not a huge fan because big games like your WB vs. GB, GB vs NR, WB vs NR mean NOTHING!! I like it the way it was.  It was a dog fight to the end and tourney play was fun to be apart of and to watch.  Is the VHSL expected to make any changes to the new setup?  I did hear on the local ESPN radio show a few months back that they would review after a couple years, but that was basketball season, so I don't know if it's just basketball or the entire setup in general.

I have heard that they will check the number of kids in each school every 2 years and change conferences accordingly. Was told that Hickory was only about 15 students away from being division 6

GF 5-0 over DC. Brett Smith struck out 8 in the win. Andrew Bullock 2 for 3.

NR 5-2 over OS.  Trevor Riggs hits his third HR in four games.  Kieton Rivers hits hit first HR of the season.

Do you know who threw for OS ?

Great game going on with Western Branch at Great Bridge.  Headed into extra innings.  Logan Harrelson hit a double in the bottom of the 7th for GB with one out.  Next batter reached on an infield single (it sounds like.)  GB had runners at the corners with only 1 out but Klak struck out the next two batters to force extra innings.

 

In the previous (6th) inning, Cody was issued an intentional walk to load the bases for GB and WB got out of the jam. Klak took the mound in the 5th with bases loaded and escaped without allowing a run.  At the end of the 5th, it was GB 4, WB 3.

WB scored in the top of the 8th when Butler doubled in a run.  Fisher took the mound in the bottom of the 8th after catching 7 innings.

 

Final Western Branch 5, Great Bridge 4.

 

Thanks to the Hickory fan who texted me updates throughout the game.

Everyone and everything will encounter bumps in the road.Nobody said it would be easy!!This type of game builds character and only makes you better.
#one in a row #bruins

In a previous forum, I stated Trevor Riggs was a great player to watch and so far for what I have heard and saw in the papers he has hit 3 hrs in 4 games so far this year. What  a great start to season that has just begun.

WB vs GB was a great game.   WB shower me they do have some pitching.  Sophomore lefty, Klak, came in with bases loaded in 5th and showed poise.  Battled through some defensive errors and looked REALLY good.   First time I saw him throw.   Impressive.  GB starter was a sophomore too.   Bienlien.  He throws hard and has good off speed.   He was terrific also.        Very good game.   WB offense wasn't explosive, but they had just enough.   Well done.

I think it was Ennis. 

 

This may be a slight exaggeration, but it seemed as though he threw 70% offspeed.  Mainly breaking ball.

Ok so their number 1 will throw tonight I assume

Will it matter what pitcher they have on the Hill? GF can't hit.

 

I stopped by this game last night (DC vs GF) on way home from work. A good friend of mine, his son plays for OS. Their review of the game was... Brett Smith pitched great. Bad base running cost GF some runs. That’s about it…GF can’t seem to hit the ball at all.

Are you sure about who got the hits last night? Heard they only had 3?

I told you all you guys two weeks ago when pitching was questioned that Klak would be on bump. Todays game should be interesting for WB, Indian River always plays them tough.  Good luck to everyone playing this afternoon.

GF had 5 hits I know of at least. Bullock (2) Riddick, Burmeister and Burcham. As for base running GF had 5 SBs and was caught stealing once on an attempt for 3rd. Not sure if that is what you were referring to by bad base running. They also had a man leave early on a tag up.

 

You can disagree on how many hits but the book for both teams had 5 hits for GF.

I do think the GF vs OS game tonight will be a pretty good game.

 

Anyone know how hard Klak throws for WB?   I saw and it looked hard....for a lefty.   I'm not a velocity expert without a gun.  

Thanks.....and secondly,  I HATE that all these SED teams were split this year.   Only one regulars season game for most.  Sucks.

I've heard from different ppl that it looks like Klak has a bright future ahead of him. Nice to see young guys performing well. I also don't like the new set up because of limited games vs old SED. But at least more SED teams get a chance to go deep in playoffs.

Yeah....pros and cons.  But with the WB/GB game last night....leaves you wanting more of those matchups.    And yes...lot of talk about Klak since just last night.

Robert White threw well enough to keep  the Western Branch Hitters off balance and hold them to 5 runs.Other than that both teams seemed to be a little flat. Although the Braves out hit the Bruins the final was 5-2 Bruins.
#one in row #bruins

GF 5-1 over OS. Stallings got the W.

NR over Kings Fork 6-5. 

Why such a tight game with Kings Fork?Have they gotten better or NR not play well?

Perfect storm of lack of intensity, relatively poor play, and incredibly poor officiating.  Poor calls attributed to a differential of about 3 or 4 runs, depending.  (It could have been more of a 7-2 or 8-2 type of game, minus those calls...all of which occurred in one inning).  I hesitate to even mention it, but it was bad enough that it can't be omitted.  Even that being the case, they didn't play well.  

 

One common denominator in the three games against Lakeland, OS, and KF, has been the pitching they have faced.  They have not adjusted well, as a group, to slower velocity.

 

NR brought in Fitzwater, the last couple of innings, and he promtly struck out 6 of 7 batters faced.  On the night NR pitchers struck out 16.  It was a weird night!

 

Finally, due to an injury in the preseason to a starting infielder, and also the very strong play of a few underclassmen, the lineup has been shuffled a bit in the early going.  I would expect that to settle over the coming weeks, as ongoing competitions at certain positions work themselves out.  The injured player has just been cleared to play and is back in the fold.

Two more big ones tomorrow!

 

Grassfield/Great Bridge and NR/Hickory!

GB 7-3 over GF. A pretty well played game.

What was WB Lakeland score

Hickory 14 Nansemond River 3.  Hickory jumped on NR 5-1 after 2 innings. A base running error by 2 NR players on a single to RF resulted in both players being tagged out at 3B ending an inning and killing NR's chance to close the gap. The younger Polanski then hit a grand slam in the 4th increasing the margin to 9-1. After a pitching change in the 5th NR fielding errors led to 5 unearned runs and an insurmountable lead.