Eagles Baseball Ready for New Tier of Playoffs
May 5, 2003

Major League Baseball made the television folks happy several years ago when it expanded its playoff field.

The Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference is no slave to the telly, but it, too, has added another round to its baseball season.

Beginning Thursday and running through Saturday (May 8-10), the league will hold its four-team tournament at Grand Valley State. This is a double-elimination tournament that includes the top four finishers from the regular season. The tournament winner does not receive an automatic bid to the NCAA playoffs.

The Ashland University Eagles (35-16-1/22-7-1 GLIAC) are the second seed. The Eagles and Saginaw Valley State (28-16/17-11) will open the tournament when they meet at 11 a.m. Thursday. At 3 p.m., that day, regular-season champ Grand Valley State (34-11-1/20-6-1) will take on the fourth seed, Hillsdale (24-18/16-12).

Ashland and Saginaw Valley State ended the regular season with a four-game series in Ashland. The Eagles won three of those four games. The opener in that series went to AU, 2-1. That contest matched two of the league’s top pitchers – AU’s Ryan Hartzell and SVSU’s Scott Corby. The Eagles won the game in the bottom of the seventh inning when senior designated hitter Brock Wiskochil singled to bring in Brandon Cornell.

As is the case with all postseason baseball tournaments, staying in the winner’s bracket is the key to success. Fighting back through the loser’s bracket is a tall task. It will be interesting to see how the Eagles and Cardinals adjust after playing less than a week ago. The element of surprise should be gone for both Hartzell and Corby.

“I think that helps the pitchers a little more than the hitters,” said AU head coach John Schaly. Asked what he would tell Hartzell the second time around against the Cardinals, Schaly was quick and to the point. “Do the same thing.”

For the past several seasons, the GLIAC didn’t rely on a postseason tournament to cap its season. However, most leagues, including the other league in the North Central region, the Great Lakes Valley Conference, has a tournament. A tournament gives a team in postseason limbo a chance to make a strong closing statement and push for the playoffs. By the same token, a tournament could also ruin the postseason dreams of a team that’s played well for most of the season.

“This is for a conference championship,” reminded Schaly. “Winning a conference championship is our first goal. Hopefully we can build off of that.”

Ashland went 1-0-1 against GVSU, losing two games to rain. The Eagles lost three of four games to Hillsdale early in the season.

The Eagles have played their best baseball in the season’s latter stages. AU enters the tournament with wins in 10 of its last 11 games. The Eagles have made only one error in their last five games. In their last 12 games, AU has scored seven or more runs 10 times.

“We’re playing well in all phases of the game,” said Schaly. “We’ve been playing great defense.”

Junior catcher Josh Gaub is hitting .420 with a pair of homers and 35 RBI. Senior shortstop Tim Hinchliffe is hitting .398 with a team-high 56 runs. Cornell, a junior center fielder, is at . 389 with eight homers and 43 RBI. Wiskochil has also driven in 43 runs. He’s hitting .354. One of AU’s hottest hitters is junior third baseman Eric McDaniel. He’s at .372 with six homers and 38 RBI. Last week, McDaniel hit .611 with two homers and 10 RBI.

Senior infielder-pitcher Chris Skibinski is hitting .381 and is 5-3 with a 3.28 ERA. Senior righty Nate Wright leads the GLIAC in wins with a 9-2 record. Senior righty Jon Krugman won two games last week and is 7-3. Hartzell is 6-5 and needs one more win to become the program’s career leader in wins. Hartzell goes into the GLIAC tournament with 37 career victories.