Marietta outfilder Turner Hill's 2021 slash line, .449/.515/.587, would be the envy of many baseball players. Marietta athletics photo

By Shawn Spence for D3baseball.com

In 2021, it looked like Marietta had the right path to make the D-III College World Series, playing at home with a team that had all the right pieces. It did not work out that way as Rowan won the Marietta Regional. Out in Whitewater, Wisc. it was Adrian who was finding the magic needed to punch a ticket to Cedar Rapids.

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Marietta and Adrian are once again back as favorites in Region 7. They will both have their challengers as the OAC is always a tough conference to win and in the MIAA, the tide is rising as everyone in Michigan seems to be getting better. Washington and Jefferson had the fewest losses in all of D-III but never made the regional championship game in 2021. Count them in the mix as well. Denison and Wooster will be fight it out in the NCAC with one a likely conference champion and the other with a shot at an at-large bid to the NCAA's. The coaching rotation might trip up La Roche and allow Penn State Behrend a shot at a walnut and bronze trophy.

New Faces

Calital Head Coach Scott Manahan is known throughout baseball circles as one of the best high school coaches in the nation. He is enshrined in the National High School Baseball Coaches Hall of Fame, as well as the Ohio High School Baseball Coaches Hall of Fame. Capital athletics photo

LaRoche: Adam Dukate takes over after serving as assistant coach at Saint Vincent since 2012. Dukate played his college ball as a pitcher at Division 2 California (Pa.) and nine Bearcat pitchers made all-conference in his time at St. Vincent. In one way, Dukate inherits a favorable situation given LaRoche’s recent success, but he was also a late hire and LaRoche did not have a coach through the fall. The program kept going under student leadership, but was less organized and Dukate’s first order of business will have been to restore structure to the program.

Capital: Longtime women’s basketball coach and hall of famer Dixie Jeffers was also the interim athletic director before she retired during the winter, but her parting gift may be luring Columbus-area high school coach Scott Manahan out of retirement. Manahan had a decorated career at Bishop Watterson, coaching many players to collegiate and pro careers, and was a perennial winner. The Crusaders may be his biggest-ever challenge, though one of the Crusaders’ four wins was a stunner over OAC champion Marietta.

Medaille: Medaille hired Brian Kehew as Head Coach this summer. He joins Medaille following his most recent position at Becker College in Leicester, MA as the Head Coach of the baseball team since July 2018. Prior to Becker, he had a six year run at Salve Regina University in Newport, RI where he worked as an Assistant for the baseball team while also serving as their Recruiting Coordinator and as the Student-Athlete Success Coordinator for the athletic department. "I was drawn to Medaille College first and foremost by all of the friendly and helpful peo ple who work to provide their students with the optimal learning experience," said Kehew.

Waynesburg: Perry Cunningham takes the helm for the Yellow Jackets. Cunningham has bided his time in southwest Pennsylvania, serving as an assistant coach at Waynesburg for 14 years. Waynesburg has had three seasons since 2015 in which a Yellow Jacket pitcher was Pitcher of the Year or first-team all-Pac, and Cunningham will doubtlessly be looking to build further mound strength. Cunningham has a resume that should be attractive to pitching talent. He pitched nearly 500 innings in professional baseball with the Chillicothe Paints in the Frontier League.

Key Games

#17 Washington & Jefferson at Mount Union, Feb. 19 – Yes, you read that right. Mid-February baseball, in northeastern Ohio, at least in theory. If this does get played, it’s a season-opening matchup of two teams looking to strike an early blow that could end up looking very good on a tournament resume. Neither team had this chance last year, as both played in conferences that decided to strike non-conference games from their schedules. Apparently neither wanted to wait around in 2022.

#21 Denison vs. #5 Adrian in Mount Berry, Ga., March 6 – Not sure if neither of these coaches own a globe or what, but at least they’re getting together for an early in-region clash of power programs, even if they took a chunk out of the travel budget to do it. If it’s possible for a top-5 team to be miffed about the preseason poll, the Bulldogs may well be that after being only the second-highest ranked team in the region, despite Adrian’s regional championship at UW-Whitewater. Denison won four games in its regional. These two will take a back seat to no one in the region.

Case Western vs. #2 SUNY-Cortland, Lexington, S.C., March 11-13 – Perhaps because the Spartans play 4-game conference weekends in the University Athletic Association, Case plays several 4-game weekends out of conference. This is one that should give coach Matt Englander a very clear idea of what his Spartans can do against one of the best programs in D3 over the last three decades.

#3 Marietta vs. #20 North Central and #14 Webster in Port Charlotte, Fla., March 12 – This is getaway day for the Pioneers but shapes up to be the toughest day of an already challenging 6-day, 8-game Snowbird Classic schedule. Expect the top arms to be ready to go as all three teams will want to score key wins that would loom large for postseason consideration and seeding.

#3 Marietta vs. #21 Denison, March 29 (at Granville) and April 3 (at Marietta) – Twice in six days, these two regional heavies will play big games while negotiating the thick of the conference schedule. Denison coach Mike Deegan played and coached at Marietta, but Deegan is in his 10^th year at Denison now, so that’s old news. The best reason to circle these games is for the matchup of high-caliber programs with similar styles in games that could impact NCAA tournament selection, seeding, and host opportunities.

Wooster at #21 Denison, April 30 – Last year, these two played some dandies as they vied for supremacy in the NCAC. Three games went to extra innings, and others featured late come-from-behind wins. It also shapes up as a matchup of the best bats in the NCAC – Wooster – vs. the best pitching staff – Denison. For Wooster, it is part of a wild stretch in which the Scots have scheduled 8 games on 6 dates against Allegheny, Heidelberg, Mount Union and Denison, then follow up the next day with John Carroll.

Penn State-Behrend at LaRoche, April 30 – LaRoche only lost three games in 2021, but two were back-to-back in the AMCC championship series to PSU-Behrend. Behrend then went on to make a strong account of themselves and the conference with two wins in a loaded Marietta regional. LaRoche swept two tight games in conference regular-season play against the Lions and will be itching for revenge in this series which could have major implications on the AMCC tournament.

Conference Previews

Thomas Zbezinski is the ace of the AMCC and is part of an experience starting rotation for Penn St.-Behrend.  Penn State Behrend athletics photo

Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference: It’s not how you start, but how you finish that matters in college baseball.

PSU Behrend played that role to the hilt last season, spoiling a sparkling LaRoche season with 2 wins to capture a best-of-3 championship and win the Allegheny Mountain’s automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. LaRoche had just 1 loss up until that point, but was not able to start the season until the 2^nd week of April, and simply didn’t have on its resume to be chosen from Pool C despite its dominating season.

Behrend made a good account of the AMCC in the Marietta regional, winning two games with its losses coming to the two finalists in the 6-team field.

LaRoche has had the best regular season conference record in the AMCC every year since 2013. But the disheveled state of the Redhawks program – coachless until mid-November – adds an additional layer of uncertainty, and seems to swing the door wide open for Behrend or someone else to end LaRoche’s run of regular season dominance.

Penn State Behrend (27-13) could not be better positioned to take advantage of LaRoche’s status. The Lions return their top four pitchers to a conference in which typically pitching is at a premium, and the majority of last year’s starting lineup.

The mound riches start with Thomas Zbezinski, who may have been even better than his outstanding numbers last year. Against LaRoche and Rochester in his last two starts, he struck out 23 and allowed just 1 run on 6 hits in 15 innings. Zbezinski allowed 7 of his 12 earned runs last year in one game.

The rest of the regular starters all have ERAs hovering around 4, good enough to put the Lions in a position to win in late weekend and midweek games. Derrick Shields showed strikeout ability and improved control could see him level up into the kind of 2^nd ace that can trigger a postseason run.

LaRoche (20-3) still has some holdover talent to be a factor in the AMCC. Nathan Stutz will impact every area of the team as a key hitter, catcher, and he was the informal leader of efforts to keep training up during the fall in the absence of a head coach. Ryan Lynn is unusual in that he’s a shortstop that will probably be his team’s biggest power hitting threat.

But in addition to the flux, LaRoche was also looking at replacing a raft of standouts anyway, and doesn’t get any help from returning 5^th years. Graduation takes a big chunk out of the lineup, but Dukate has few self-evident options on the pitching mound as 3 of the 4 pitchers with more than 20 innings last year depart. And the Redhawks, predictably given the situation, have only a few incoming freshmen.

Mount Aloysius (19-14) had some real highlights in 2021, including wins over Keystone and Shenandoah and a 10-game winning streak, but a stop-start season ultimately met a rough end with a 3-8 finish.

Running has long been the Mounties’ game under coach Kevin Kime, and it was no exception in 2021, when seven players had at least 7 stolen bases. Jeremy Iellimo typified the style, recording a .500 on base average only being caught stealing once in 14 attempts. Improved pitching could see the Mounties bid to crack the top 2 in the league.

From here, the AMCC picture gets pretty muddy. Most squads bring back at least one of the league’s best bats, but the pitching is a huge question mark on all fronts.

Alfred State (18-23) returns slugger Matteo Avalone, whose 9 home runs led the conference. Penn State Altoona (12-15) brings back the league’s newcomer of the year in All-region pick Jake Hilliard, Pitt.-Greensburg (7-21)’s Jacob Davey is a contact hitter that can clear the bases as well, while one bright spot for Medaille (1-16) was Patrick Whelan, who hit 5 home runs in the abbreviated season.

One team that does have a notable returning pitcher is Pitt-Bradford (6-15) with Alex Miles, while utility man Misael Guzman Caez may be the best at Hilbert (7-16) both on the mound and at the plate.

FAVORITE: Penn State Behrend

Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association: Over the last decade or more, the Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association baseball championship conversation pretty much begins and ends with Adrian.

Craig Rainey has built a strong and consistent program and the only remaining frontier for the Bulldogs is to play on the final day of the D3 season. In 2021, Adrian won the Whitewater regional with two wins in the championship round over the host school, then went 1-2 in the national tournament.

Any challenge to Adrian’s reign will come from well off the pace. The Bulldogs won the league by 5 ½ games in a 24-game schedule, with both Calvin and Hope finishing with 8 losses. Adrian also will need to replace several important players, but the national consensus is clearly that they can – the Bulldogs are ranked fifth in the preseason D3baseball.com poll.

Hope may have the league’s best player – power-hitting outfielder Evan Maday, while Kalamazoo has an array of talent and bringing it all together could lead to a breakout season for the Hornets in a league where most of the challenges are trying to replace their top pitchers from a year ago.

The championship tournament trip is only part of Adrian’s 2021 story. The Bulldogs (37-10) set a school record with 37 wins, and did it while missing the highest drafted pitcher in D3 – Angels' 13^th rounder Mo Hanley – for most of the year by injury. Adrian also had an All-American catcher and the MIAA pitcher of the year, and will be looking to replace all three. It seems like a tall order, but the Bulldogs are still ranked fifth, a testament to the strength and confidence Rainey has built in this program.

Shortstop Thomas Miller – a former All-American – had 24 extra-base hits and drew 29 walks in 2021, and he is also one of the best defensive infielders in the region. Kevin Cardentey should move into the field after DHing last year, and brings consistent line-drive contact hitting with gap power. Several other returners have shown flashes of brilliance and power hitting that Rainey will hope gel into consistent slugging. Adrian has some patching up to do on the pitching staff, but rarely seems to lack for options on filling holes from year to year.

Kalamazoo (25-15) returns the MIAA batting average leader in first baseman Spencer Baldwin, as well as a significant power threat – Blake Bean – from the top hitting team in the conference last year. Logically, this means that where K Zoo could stand to improve is on the pitchers’ mound, and indeed the team ERA was only third despite leading the conference in strikeouts per nine innings – they also led in walks per nine innings. Doug Propson may be the league’s best utility players, and was a bullpen cog that showed ability to get strikeouts without giving away free passes. His third base duties may preclude taking on a bigger pitching role, but at 15.6 strikeouts per 9 innings last year, getting him to the mound more often could be worth the tradeoff.

Hope (25-15) has the league’s top overall talent in Maday, who can do it all at the D3 level. As much bat talent as he has, his plate discipline makes him an even tougher out – rarely do power hitters walk three times as often as they strike out (33BB, 10K). Spencer Cable pairs with him to make a tandem of hard-to-handle left-handed hitting outfielders for the Flying Dutchmen. Hope last year was a puzzle, leading the MIAA in on-base percentage, stolen bases, and second in home runs, but only fifth in team batting average.

Calvin (22-16) has arguably the biggest hole in the conference to fill with ace pitcher Trevor VanDuyn, and it appears Andrew Hung and Nick Vogel will be the focal points of the effort to make up for the loss on the mound. Both had double digit extra base hits last season and topped 25 RBIs.

Alma (14-20) returns Avery Carnicom, who had 7 home runs and Josh Robinson, who had 6 home runs among his 21 extra-base hits, but didn’t manage to crack the .300 mark in batting average or .400 in on base.

Albion (13-27) coach Scott Carden tries to reset the program with a staggering 26 freshmen on its 40-man roster while hoping to get more power hitting out of the returners led by Sean Haddlesey, Trine (6-28) had a rough season last year but may have found a slugger in Corey Erbskorn, while Olivet (6-24) had similar problems and will try to rebuild around senior Matt Fisher.

 FAVORITE: Adrian

Denison earned a spot in the D3baseball.com Top 25 with a 27-13 record in 2021 and returning a superior pitching staff. Denison athletics photo

North Coast Athletic Conference: This season shapes up as a crossroads year in the North Coast Athletic Conference. After years of Wooster being the default favorite, Denison has won the last two conference tournament championships. Denison won 4 of 7 head-to-head against the Fighting Scots, and then went on to the NCAA regional, winning 4 games but dropping 2 of 3 to then top-ranked Washington University.

Wooster returns the bulk of its lineup – including at least four all-region caliber hitters -- while losing its top two pitchers, while the Big Red graduate a number of difference-making batsmen and return the bulk of last year’s pitching staff.

The NCAC was far from a two-team show, though. Wittenberg, Wabash, DePauw and Allegheny all finished above .500 in the conference last year, and Kenyon was competitive after a late season start. In a league that plays all 7-inning games, it’s easy to struggle for a few frames and find yourself in a battle before you know it.

Holding back most of these teams from achieving more was consistent and effective pitching. Only Kenyon and Denison recorded earned run averages below 5.40.

Denison coach Mike Deegan has built the Big Red program on a few principles. One of them is gratitude. DU (27-13) has plenty for which to thank his 2021 program-changing senior class, which included two all-American honorees. Now for Deegan, the next phase of program building: replacing those difference makers.

Two of the league’s best starting pitchers will spearhead the effort, supported by most of last year’s pitching staff. NCAC Pitcher of the Year Charlie Fleming and Tyler Perrett had a 13-3 combined record last year and should be among the most reliable arms in the NCAC. But the hitting lineup will need to be significantly retooled. Danny Alvarez and Dylan Hunter are the top returnees.

Wooster (25-13) was arguably the best offensive team in the conference in 2021, and it would be a major surprise if they weren’t comfortably the best this year. Tyler Chumita is a preseason all-American, Ben Hines was all-Region last year, and Dane Camphausen and Ben Gbur swing potent bats, and a step up in consistency could see them become strong candidates for regional and national honors as well.

What held back the Scots last year was consistency on the mound, and the loss of their two top starting pitchers makes the need to find answers there even more acute. Reliever Colin Springer was 3^rd on the team in innings and had the lowest ERA of the top trio, and he will probably be asked to do more, whether it’s starting or finishing games.

Austin Simmers headlines five returning .300+ hitters for Wabash (18-15), but Cole Vassilo was the only Little Giant regular to top .500 slugging on a club that should be one of the top hitting teams for average in the NCAC. Finding a bit more pop in their bats could make the LG’s the top contender to spoil the conference favorites.

Kase Lawson led the conference in earned run average among qualified pitchers, and Wabash also returns innings leader Dylan Scheid, who is a better strikeout artist but suffered control problems.

Allegheny (15-12) also got a late start to last season but showed enough to fuel thoughts of a competitive and hopefully full season in 2022. Ace pitcher Conor Deasy was one of the league’s most difficult to hit against, and completed 4 of his 5 starts, but only went 3-2 due to lack of run support. He and Daniel Morgano should make a formidable 1-2 combo that will make life tough on NCAC foes.

The Gators usually hit for good power, especially in Meadville at 1400 feet elevation, but needs to get more runners on base to make their extra-base hits count.

Wittenberg (21-11) was 2021’s third-best NCAC team, but suffers heavy graduation losses that begin but don’t end with all-region slugger Jack Hollinshead.

Jack Siefert is the best hitter of a few 5^th year seniors that return, and Joe Horozko was 5-1 in 8 appearances on the mound last year, but quite a few more depart both from the lineup and the pitching staff. The Tigers generally recruit well, but it may take a bit to reload from so many departures.

It’s hard to know what to make of Kenyon (7-7) from last year’s 14 games. But the top of the lineup produced and the pitching staff kept the Lords in games against quality opponents in NCAC play, including a win in 4 tries over both Wooster and Allegheny, boding well for 2022. Kyle Dwyer batted over .400 to lead three starters over .380, and Sam Richards leads several returning pitchers from a staff that led the NCAC in ERA last year.

DePauw (15-21) struggled to hit the baseball and that will need to change, but may have a bona fide ace in the making in Michael Vallone. Vallone’s walks and hits allowed, and strikeout rate are already strong, but his ERA was not. Still, leading the league in strikeouts per 9 innings as a freshman with just 41 walks/hits in 39 innings is an eyebrow-raiser.

Rounding out the conference, any hopes for a top half finish from Ohio Wesleyan (8-23) will likely be balanced on the hitting of Davis Graham and pitching of Ethan Soderna, who could use more run support than he got last year. The Hiram (11-29) Terriers’ campaign will likely rely heavily on utility pitcher Jacob Kocuba, while Oberlin (2-8) got in just 10 games last year, but Jake Freed impressed as a freshman, batting .472.

 FAVORITE: Denison

Mount Union made it to the 2021 OAC championship series but two one-run losses kept the Raiders at home for the NCAA playoffs. Mount Union athletics photo

Ohio Athletic Conference: Well, we tried to warn you. We said not to be fooled by one bad year (or even a few) by the most accomplished program in Division 3. Hopefully, you listened.

Marietta rebounded in 2021 in a big way, with its first, and the conference’s first, regular season/tournament Ohio Athletic Conference championship double since 2012, and were ranked as high as fourth in the D3baseball.com/NCBWA poll. After a few rocky years, maybe some had forgotten about them, but the Yankees of D3 – hat tip @D3BaseballPod for their apt description of the Pioneers -- are alive and well. They’re ranked 3^rd in the D3baseball.com preseason poll.

If anyone was fooled, they won’t be overlooking the Etta Express this year. The Pioneers return two All-Americans -- relief ace and gold glove winner Sam Mathews and table setting outfielder Turner Hill -- along with gold glove first baseman Drew Holderbach, to name just a few of many talented returners.

The Pios are certainly the favorites in the OAC, but they will not be unchallenged. Mount Union returns the big 3 pitchers and one very big bat – Zack Mazza’s -- that propelled the Purple Raiders to a second-place finish in both regular season and tournament. They will think they should have done even more.

Four times Marietta and Mount Union were tied in the 9^th inning, but the Etta Express won all 4 and went 6-0 versus the Purple Raiders in a 6-day span. OAC coaching dean Paul Hesse only need point to those games to set the agenda for 2022.

Ohio Northern has arms, as usual; Baldwin-Wallace has bats, as usual, and several teams in the conference have returning high-end talent to build from in what should be a strong year for the conference, with many seniors back for a fifth year.

Marietta (38-6) also returns third baseman Damian Yenzi, an all-region pick in 2021, for his fifth year as the starter at the hot corner. First-team all-OAC pick Brett Carson transfers in from Muskingum, adding to the aforementioned riches.

One could add 4-5 more names to the notables list without much stretching for talent. The options in the batter’s box are particularly plentiful. Logan Vietmeier’s season totals don’t jump out, but his efficiency does, and he was the Pios’ cleanup hitter at 2021 season’s end.

Finding and developing pitching depth will be a priority and a necessity to go from very good to great. Marietta has only 6 pitchers on the roster that have pitched more than 1 inning for MC. They need more for a bona fide national title bid.

As mentioned, Mount Union (28-13) will be desperate to turn near misses into wins often enough to earn an NCAA tournament bid, whether by championship or by Pool C selection. Thomas Gallant and Corey Davis combined for half of Mount’s wins, while Zack Mazza can change games on his own with the best power bat in the conference.

To take the next step, Mazza needs more help in the lineup. Mount was 5^th in team batting average and 6^th in on-base percentage in the OAC last year.

Ohio Northern (21-15) is another squad that could take a leap forward with improved hitting. Head coach and former MLB pitcher Gene Stechschulte has the pitching staff one would expect from a coach of his vintage, with Tom Pitko and James Fisher combining for a 12-4 record with ERAs both around 2.50.

While the Polar Bears were 3^rd in the OAC in team batting average, a lack of plate discipline and power hitting muted the impact of those hits, and ONU was 7^th in the league in runs scored. Corey McMann and his 27 extra-base hits were an exception to that rule.

Baldwin-Wallace (23-16-1) is the polar opposite of ONU. The Yellow Jackets have become known for offense and 2021 was no exception, finishing 2^nd in the league in average, on-base, slugging and runs scored. They lose a couple of big sticks, and it’ll just be strange to see a BW roster without Dudley Taw on it, though Alex Ludwick is back for a 5^th year and will be one of the league’s best position players.

Despite the losses, the mound is where BW will need to improve to return to NCAA regional contention. BW coach Brian Harrison trotted out an almost unbelievable 21 different hurlers in 2021 – 13 for more than 10 innings – most of them were underclassmen.

Heidelberg (24-16-1) has history and a few top returners back to spur hopes of breaking out of a tightly bunched pack of 3^rd-5^th place finishers last year. Hitting and hustle are their program DNA, and Keaton Mark provides leadership in both.

Heidelberg’s losses on offense are heavy, and while the Student Princes return 5 of their 6 most often used arms from 2021, they’ll need improvement from them to recover ground on the conference’s top tier. Some threw strikes but were easy to hit. Others were hard to hit but had trouble throwing strikes. Not many did both well. Ryan Hackworth was closest, and is the incumbent candidate for staff ace.

John Carroll (18-21-1) had a losing record last year but has two unmatchable assets – the league’s best first-year player, and the OAC’s most dominating starting pitcher on his day. Mitchell Midea’s 15-strikeout OAC tournament start showed what he can do at his best, but JCU needs to see his best more regularly to compete for higher honors.

Olsavsky was simply the national newcomer of the year and figures to only get better. The Blue Streaks have a history of turning out elite individual players despite their relatively middle of the pack team performance. Olsavsky looks the part, but he’ll be hoping for better team performance than his predecessors.

Otterbein (14-20) was wracked with covid-related issues last year and will look for a bounce back year from Luke Barber, who showed power but not consistency in contrast to some of his dominant past seasons.

The grand experiment at Wilmington (11-27) continues as former D1 head coach Tony Vittorio looks to continue a gradual building up of the Quaker program. Last year’s 8^th place campaign was Wilmington’s best since 2009.

Devin Ryan is the talisman of Muskingum (7-23-1) now and an attempt to improve from 9^th place will be built around him, and aside from an upset of Marietta, Capital (4-30) has struggled mightily of late and will try to begin the rebuild around powerful infielder Logan White.

FAVORITE: Marietta

W&J's Tyler Horvat is one of the best two way players in D-III baseball. Washington and Jefferson athletics photo

Presidents’ Athletic Conference: Despite the name, only one PAC school is actually named after a president, so perhaps it’s appropriate that the Presidents of D3baseball.com preseason #17 Washington & Jefferson have dominated the conference in baseball over the past decade.

In 2021, only an upset loss to Chatham separated Jeff Mountain’s Presidents from a perfect regular season. NCAA tournament play was a different matter, as W&J bowed out in High Point, N.C. after three games.

Mountain is starting his 20^th year at W&J and has led the Presidents to eight NCAA tournaments since 2009.

 With All-American pitchers Henry Litman and Tyler Horvat returning, stopping the Presidents’ run of success will be a tall order for anyone else in the conference this year, but Grove City has a solid returning core as well including their top 2 starters from last year – Tate Ostrowski and Nick Guidas – and will certainly not be conceding to the Presidents after falling just short last season.

A closing reading of the above accolades makes clear that Washington & Jefferson (37-3) made its success last year on the back of strong pitching, including depth of talent going well into the bullpen. It isn’t an exaggeration to say most of the league’s top pitchers a year ago were Presidents. Litman and Horvat were among the best in the entire region, and Kautz was a reliable reliever that should take a larger role in 2022.

Where W&J would probably like to improve is at the plate. While Horvat and Kalinski will return to anchor the top of the lineup, W&J placed only third in the conference in batting average, and the one area the Presidents suffered heavy losses is in the middle of the batting order, so most rivals will likely pin their upset hopes on winning a low-scoring pitchers’ duel.

No team will have more regrets and second guesses over the offseason than Grove City (27-10). The Wolverines lost all 5 times they played the Presidents. But those 5 losses were by a combined 6 runs, and the last a truly gut-wrenching 1-0 game in which the only run scored was unearned and came in the first inning.

Even at that, coach Matt Royer – who has a record of success in both Division 1 and 2 and more than 500 career wins -- has fashioned back-to-back 28-win seasons, with 2021 seeing the highest winning percentage in school history. Ostrowski, Guidas, slugging catcher C.J. Saylor and several others who led that effort are back and hoping to manage to turn close losses into wins.

Perhaps the most intriguing team in the PAC this year – and certainly the most likely to provide high-scoring entertainment last year – is Franciscan (16-17).  The Barons pulled off the presumably rare feat of leading the league in batting average through the end of the conference season (W&J ended up tops following regionals), and placing last in team ERA, leading to a bizarre season-ending streak of 19 games where one team or another scored at least 7 runs.

Longtime D3 coach Rick Carver had only two seniors last year and so in the Barons’ third year since reviving the program from hiatus, could be poised to take more positive steps. They’ll be led by the PAC’s leading returning hitter – Joshua Costello, who stood out both in contact and power hitting in 2021. And he has plenty of help in the batting order, but Carver needs to find some on the mound.

It is hard to know a lot about Saint Vincent (17-18) for 2022 considering their two best players are eligible for 5^th years, but the team roster has not been updated yet to reveal if they have opted to take them. One key player that isn’t on his 5^th year is Jordan Sabol, who doesn’t hit for a lot of power but – Brad Pitt pointing to Jonah Hill time – he gets on base. And then he often steals another (16 SB).

Bethany (16-21) did not stand out in many ways statistically but chugged along to an above .500 league finish in 2021. Trey Mantle and Mark Lavezza are returning pitchers that weren’t spectacular and didn’t strike out a lot of batters, but churned out innings and kept the Bison in position to compete for victories.

The rest of the league is a collection of schools struggling at a similar level – Chatham (12-23), Westminster (13-21), Waynesburg (12-20), Thiel (14-20) and Geneva (11-24) all had between 11 and 14 wins and at least 20 losses. Caleb Lehman gives Chatham a surprising dimension of speed and athleticism from the catcher position, in addition to being one of the best returning hitters in the PAC. Seth Johnson and Trey Williams anchor a Thiel lineup that could compete near the top of the league in that respect. Westminster’s Logan Minch will certainly hope for better luck: he went 0-5 despite a 3.79 ERA. Brandon Durbin returns for a graduate year and will be the building block for Waynesburg after 2021 that saw 17 players start at least 4 games in the field.

The club that emerges from this group will likely be the one that pitches more effectively than the rest.

FAVORITE: Washington and Jefferson

Independent: Case Western (20-10) returns most of the lineup from 2021, including a few 5^th year seniors. And the Spartans have a big addition from the 5^th year ranks as well, as coach Matt Englander snagged Evan Faxon on a transfer from his alma mater, Wooster.

Faxon went 15-5 with 140 career strikeouts for the Scots, leveling up to 63 strikeouts in 52 innings last year. On a Spartan team that last year got more than 100 innings from freshmen and sophomores, could be the staff ace right away.

Englander played 17 position players at least 10 games last year, getting a wide mix of performances that make it tough to guess what his regular lineup might be in 2022, if there is one. But it’s a safe bet super senior Jacob Lott will be on the lineup card after his 16 extra base hits last year. Tre Amstrong and Jack Anderson were a strong catching platoon; Anderson hit .444 in 45 at-bats with 7 doubles, while Armstrong hit .360 in 50 at-bats. Perhaps one or more of them will find a permanent home in the order.

Englander usually plays a tough schedule, and this year’s might even be tougher than usual. W&J, N.C. Wesleyan, SUNY-Cortland, Adrian, Denison, Wooster, Baldwin Wallace, Marietta, Emory, and Washington (Mo.) account for more than half of the season slate. It would be no surprise if the Spartans rank #1 for strength of schedule in 2022.