STOCKTON – Being well-rounded is a sign of health and wellness in many cultures. Take your average portrayal of The Buddha for instance; only his smile is as big as his mid-section. Chico State Head Baseball Coach Dave Taylor has been wearing a prolific smile of late as well. That’s because his team is as well-rounded as it’s been all season on the eve of its California Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) Championship Tournament opener against UC San Diego Thursday night at Klein Family Field on the campus of University of Pacific.
Chico State’s offense carried it to a 13-2 start, putting up numbers few Wildcat teams ever have. When the team’s bats cooled, they suddenly looked surprisingly beatable. They were playing fairly well defensively, though not spectacularly. And their pitching staff, which started the season with much fanfare, was struggling mightily.
But as the temperatures have climbed marking the beginning of summer, those bats have begun to heat up once again. And unlike early in the season, the Wildcats’ pitching staff has started to perform as advertised. The defense, meanwhile, has responded with its best stretch of games of 2010. It looks as though the Wildcats are playing their best baseball of the year at just the right time.
They’ll certainly have to play good baseball to have a strong showing in this stacked tournament field that features four of the top five teams in the West Region rankings. The Wildcats open play against top-ranked UC San Diego (45-6) and then face either 25th-ranked Cal State Dominguez Hills or Cal State San Bernardino (ranked fifth in the West and just outside of the nation’s top 30 in a winners’ or losers’ bracket game on Friday.
The Wildcats enter the tournament on a seven-game winning streak. They are 34-16 overall and ranked No. 3 in the West and No. 29 in the Nation.
Rankings certainly mean little now that the postseason has begun, though when the dust settles in Stockton, the three teams that don’t win the CCAA Championship Tournament title and the automatic berth in the NCAA Championship Tournament that goes with it will be forced to wait until the NCAA Tournament field is announced on Sunday night at 7 p.m. to find out if they have received one of the West Region’s three at-large berths.
UC San Diego will clearly be playing when the NCAA Tournament kicks off next week. Dominguez Hills (currently ranked No. 2 in the West), and especially No. 3 Chico State and No. 5 Cal State San Bernardino would each love to avoid the uncertainty of leaving their fate in the hands of a committee with good showings this weekend.
For the Wildcats, a victory over defending CCAA Tournament Champion UC San Diego on Thursday would be the perfect way to start it. They split a four-game series with the Tritons earlier this season in La Jolla, handing them their only consecutive losses of the season. Three of the games were decided by one run and the other went 11 innings.
The pitching matchup of UC San Diego’s Tim Shibuya – a First Team All-CCAA selection with a 10-2 record and 2.06 ERA – and Chico State’s Michael Gleason – a First Team All-CCAA selection with a 7-1 record, 2.82 ERA, and 82 strikeouts in 83 innings - may feature the conference’s two best starting pitchers.
The Tritons offense feature CCAA MVP Brandon Gregorich (hitting .468 with 75 RBI), First Team All-CCAA shortstop Vance Albitz (the defending national Defensive Player of the Year who is hitting .360), along with First Team All-CCAA outfielders Aaron Bauman (.426 batting average) and Kyle Saul (hitting .403).
Chico State will counter with a well-balanced lineup, notable in that ninth-place batter Ben Manlove has been its best hitter over the last month. Leadoff hitter Jordan Larson is closing in on a spot in Chico State’s career top-10 list in hits with 152 hits to his credit since the beginning of last season, and is currently tied for 10th in Chico State history with 106 runs scored. Senior Michael Murphy leads the team with a .380 batting average and boasts 25 extra-base hits. Second baseman Jackson Evans earned First Team All-CCAA honors after hitting .353. Cleanup hitter Johnny Hay ranks among the CCAA’s leaders with 11 home runs and 56 RBI. Adam Arakawa, an Honorable Mention All-America selection last season, and Kevin Seaver, who broke the school’s single-season batting average and on-base percentage records last season, are potent middle-of-the-lineup hitters. Deven Braden has seven home runs and eight stolen bases. And Adrian Bringas has hit six home runs and driven in 36.
That offense combined for 62 runs last weekend in a four-game sweep of Cal State Monterey Bay.
Meanwhile, the defense has committed only one error in the past eight games. And the pitching staff has surrendered four runs or fewer in seven of its last nine games.
Chico State is making its 11th trip to the CCAA Championship Tournament in 12 years. They’re 21-15 all time in the Tournament, including 3-3 against UC San Diego, having won it all in 2000, 2004, and 2006. The Tritons, entering their seventh straight conference tournament, are 12-9 all-time in tournament play, having won it in 2005 and last season.
2010 CCAA Baseball Championship
Thursday
Game 1, 3 p.m. - #2 Cal State Dominguez Hills vs. #3 Cal State San Bernardino
Game 2, 7 p.m. - #1 UC San Diego vs. #4 Chico State
Friday
Game 3, 11 a.m. - Loser Game 1 vs. Loser Game 2 (loser eliminated)
Game 4, 3 p.m. - Winner Game 1 vs. Winner Game 2 (winner advances to title game)
Game 5, 7 p.m. - Winner Game 3 vs. Loser Game 4 (loser eliminated)
Saturday
Game 6, Noon - Winner Game 4 vs. Winner Game 5
Game 7, approx. 30 minutes following the conclusion of Game 6. Only necessary if the Winner of Game 5 also wins Game 6.
