While winter continues to maintain a firm, harsh grip on northern states, particularly those in the northeast, the NCAA Division III baseball season kicks off today in California – notably at Chapman College (2003) and the University of La Verne (1995), the two California-based D-III member schools that have national championships to their credit.
Because of climate considerations alone, those schools would appear to have a significant leg up on their competition around the country, especially in New England, which has the heaviest concentration of Division III schools (65 in all).
Baseball, after all, is traditionally a warm-weather sport and the NCAA Division I and II ranks have been dominated for years by colleges from the Sun Belt States, which have the obvious advantage of better weather year-round, especially early in the season.
But the irony of it all is that baseball at the Division III level has been dominated for years by northern-based schools. The reigning national champion is Minnesota’s St. Thomas University, the only school to win two such titles in the last decade. The Tommies were also victorious in 2001.
Since 2000, D-III championships have been won by schools from Connecticut (twice), New Jersey (twice), Ohio, Oregon and Wisconsin, in addition to the two won by St. Thomas. With its win in 2003, Chapman is the only non-northern school to break the mold.
Historically, teams from Connecticut (with 5 national titles), New Jersey (9), Ohio (4) and Wisconsin (3) have dominated the Division III ranks. Eastern Connecticut State and Ohio’s Marietta College own four championships apiece – the last for ECSC coming in 2002, for Marietta in 2006.
Appropriately, PG Crosschecker’s 2010 pre-season ranking of the nation’s top five teams in Division III looks no further than Northern colleges. Our projected No. 1 team is New Jersey’s Kean University, the 2007 national champion, whose club was bolstered by the off-season addition of power-hitting junior outfielder Ken Gregory, a University of Tampa transfer and former Texas Rangers draft pick who earned co-MVP honors last summer in the Atlantic Collegiate League.
But while Chapman and La Verne open their seasons today, Kean doesn’t start until Feb. 27. Three of the other teams in our top five don’t open until at least March 6.
Such is the quirky nature of baseball in Division III.
With no athletic scholarships available at that level, the caliber of play also varies accordingly, though there is general agreement that it is two steps down from Division I and even a step below Division II.
Accordingly, only 19 Division III players were even selected in the 2009 baseball draft – just one in the first 13 rounds. The highest such pick was 6-foot-5 SUNY Old Westbury right-hander Robert Whitenack, who was chosen in the eighth round by the Chicago Cubs after going 5-2, 2.81 with 79 strikeouts in 67 innings. He was also the first-ever draft pick from his school.
PG Crosschecker’s master follow list for the 2010 draft includes just 10 Division III players in Groups I-III, or roughly the first 25 rounds.
The first two such players are big, powerful junior right-handers: 6-foot-5, 220-pound Dave Filak from SUNY Oneonta and 6-foot-6, 235-pound Mike Giovenco from Illinois’ North Park. Both have outside chances of being selected in the top 10 rounds in June.
Filak has been plagued by inconsistency in two years at the college level, but can be dominant when he’s on his game, especially with a fastball in the 92-93 mph range. He topped the nation’s D-III pitchers in two telling statistical categories last year – most strikeouts per nine innings (14.86) and fewest hits per nine innings (5.07). In 53 innings, he fanned 88 while allowing just 30 hits. Overall, he went 6-1, 2.36.
Giovenco had similar success against D-III competition in 2009, going 7-3, 2.61 with 87 strikeouts in 71 innings. But unlike Filak, he was selected in the 26th-round of last year’s draft by the Minnesota Twins as an age-eligible sophomore.
The Twins subsequently elected not to sign Giovenco, with his lack of consistency being a contributing factor. Giovenco walked 44 in his 71 innings as a sophomore at North Park, and continued to struggle with his control in summer-league competition. With a fastball that can touch 94 mph, though, he’ll be heavily scouted again this spring.
From a scouting/draft perspective, there are few other noteworthy players at Division III schools.
New York’s Cortland State, however, has three prospects among the top 10. Two are twins Adam and Khyle Domino, who sat out a year ago but will play alongside each other in the Cortland outfield – Khyle in center, Adam in right. Both players have superior speed, with Khyle capable of running a 60-yard dash in a reported 6.25 seconds. Adam, who generally is the more prolific hitter of the two, has been timed in 6.4 seconds.
Along with stalwart defensive catcher Andersen Gardner, the Domino twins are a key factor in Cortland State being ranked No. 4 nationally.
Led by 13-game winner Justin McDowell, the nation’s winningest pitcher in 2009, St. Thomas edged Ohio’s College of Wooster, 3-2, in 12 innings in last year’s national final. Wooster had its own 12-game winner in Matt Schuld, and both McDowell and Schuld return this season, though neither is ranked among the top 10 prospects in D-III for this year’s draft. No. 2 Wooster’s chances of winning its first title, though, were bolstered by the addition of shortstop Greg Van Horn, once a highly regarded Division I prospect at Princeton.
The 2010 Division III World Series returns to Appleton, Wis., and is scheduled for May 28-June 1.