NCAA North Central Regional Baseball Tournament Preview
May 15, 2006

Tournament Schedule
The NCAA Division II North Central Regional Tournament will be held Thursday-Sunday, May 18-21, in Allendale, MI. The host is top-seeded Grand Valley State. This is a double-elimination tournament with the regional champion advancing to the NCAA Division II championships in Montgomery, AL (May 27-June 3). There are eight regions in the country and the champion from each region will make the trip to the double-elimination event in Alabama.

North Central Regional Field (Number is each team’s seed)

1. Grand Valley State (44-8)
2. Northern Kentucky (42-18-1)
3. Quincy (39-18)
4. Ashland (42-14)
5. SIU-Edwardsville (38-17-1)
6. Rockhurst (35-20)

Ashland’s first game is on Thursday (May 18) at 4 p.m., against Quincy.

AU’s NCAA Division II Regional History
Ashland University has won regional championships in 1995, 1999 and 2002. The Eagles’ last trip to regionals was in 2004. Ashland hosted the event that year and finished as the regional runnerup. AU didn’t advance to NCAA play last year and that snapped a string of six consecutive visits to the postseason.

Head Coach John Schaly
Overall Record 720-371/19th season (.660 winning percentage)
Record at Ashland: 357-153/9th season (.700 winning percentage)
This is the seventh time in John Schaly’s nine years at Ashland that he’s led the Eagles into the NCAA playoffs. Schaly has guided AU to the NCAA Championships in Alabama twice (1999, 2002). Schaly-coached teams have the seven highest single-season win totals in school history. The 2002 team won a school-record 48 games and finished the year fifth in the country. Five times in his AU tenure, Schaly has won 40 or more games. For his career, he’s averaging 37.9 wins per season and at Ashland he’s averaged 39.7 wins per season. Entering this season, AU was ranked eighth in the country on the list of winningest teams in the 2000s (243-100-1/.708).

Coming into this season, Schaly was 16th among active NCAA Division II coaches in winning percentage (.655) and victories. He was 22nd in winning percentage on the all-time NCAA Division II list and 28th in career victories. Schaly has won more games than any coach in Ashland baseball history. This year, he passed George Donges (346 wins).

Schaly’s late father, Don, is the winningest coach in NCAA Division III history (1,438-329-13/.812). He coached at Marietta for 40 years (1964-2003). John Schaly played second base for his father and is a member of the Marietta College Hall of Fame. He played on the 1981 national championship team and was the most valuable player of the Division III World Series that year. Schaly and his father have a combined wins total of 2,158.

The 2006 Eagles
Ashland is 42-14, 23-9 in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. AU finished second in the GLIAC. In last week’s College Baseball Writers Association national poll the Eagles were 14th.

The Eagles are the GLIAC leaders in runs (460), hits (620), RBI (417), doubles (131), triples (17) and total bases (863). In the most recent NCAA Division II national statistics the Eagles are 11th in team batting average (.352), 18th in doubles and 19th in scoring (8.2 runs per game).

On the pitching side of the ledger, AU is 19th in strikeouts per game (6.6).

The Lineup
AU junior second baseman Justin Randall (Sarnia ONT/St. Clair County C.C.) is the 2006 GLIAC player of the year. Randall, in his first season at AU, leads the conference in hits (85), RBI (57) and is second in batting average (.429) and doubles (18). He’s third in total bases (113). Randall ranks in the conference’s top eight in eight offensive categories. Randall has swiped 13 bases in 16 stolen base attempts.

Infielder-outfielder Casey Jirsa (Tallmadge, OH), another junior, is the GLIAC leader in total bases (121), doubles (21) and hit by pitch (14). He’s second in hits (80). Jirsa is hitting .426 with six homers and 46 RBI. He’s in the league’s top five in eight offensive categories. Like Randall, he’s a first team All-GLIAC honoree. Jirsa, who owns a 3.87 grade point average as an accounting major, is a CoSIDA First Team All-District Academic Team choice. He’s on the national Academic All-America ballot.

Senior outfielder David Waters (West Salem, OH/Wadsworth) has provided firepower from the leadoff spot. The lefthanded-hitting Waters is first in the league in runs (63) and fifth in hits (69) and total bases (101). He’s eighth in on-base percentage (.466) and ninth in RBI (41). Waters is hitting .369.

Designated hitter John Hosgood (Powell, OH/Worthington Kilbourne) earned a second team all-conference berth with a .370 batting average. Senior shortstop Jim Barry (Mentor, OH) brings a .361 batting average to the second spot in the order and is 9-for-9 on stolen base attempts. Although freshman centerfielder Tyson Rowland (Warren, OH/Harding) is best known for his glove and speed, he’s hit .347.

Junior infielder Justin Richards (Bergholz, OH/West Virginia) and sophomore outfielder Bryan Thrasher (Utica, NY/University of Buffalo) are both in their first year at AU. Richards, hampered earlier in the season by a sprained ankle, is hitting .331 with three homers and 38 RBI. Thrasher is hitting .375.

Junior catcher Eric Zattlin (Grand Haven, MI/Muskegon C.C.) is hitting .294 and has provided solid defense. He’s battled injuries recently, as has sophomore backstop Chase Beatty (Milan, OH/Edison). Beatty is hitting .313 in 28 games. Another option behind the plate is senior Ray Frisbee (Canton, OH/GlenOak), who’s hitting .273 in 30 contests.

Another experienced bat belongs to junior first baseman Ron Oneson (London, ONT/Saunders Secondary School). Oneson is hitting .303 in 49 games. He was named to the honorable mention All-GLIAC list in 2004 and 2005.

The Pitching Staff
Junior righthander Josh Davidson (Lexington, OH) is 13-4 and tied for the lead in NCAA Division II in victories. Davidson is the league leader in wins, innings pitched (92) and strikeouts (85). He’s a first team All-GLIAC choice. Last season, Davidson was honorable mention all-league and in 2004 he was the GLIAC freshman of the year.

Senior lefty Ryan Douglas (South Lebanon, OH/Loveland) is 4-1 with three saves. Douglas is first in the GLIAC in opponents batting average (.218). He’s sixth in strikeouts (63). Barry, when not as shortstop, has been an effective starter, going 8-3 with a 4.05 ERA. Freshman righthander Todd Schlenkerman (LaGrange, OH/Keystone) is 6-1 with a 3.35 ERA. He has 49 strikeouts in 51 innings and is 11th in the GLIAC in punchouts.

Senior Cody Castle (Dayton, OH/Sinclair C.C.), who sat out all of last year with a medical redshirt, is 5-2. In 2004, Castle was first team All-GLIAC and second team all-region with a 9-4 record and three saves. He had a 3.22 ERA that season.

Matt Patton (Ashland, OH/Cloverleaf), a junior lefthander and the son of pitching coach Drew Patton, has thrived in pressure situations out of the bullpen. He’s allowed just one six inherited runners to cross home plate. Richards, who’s 1-1 with a 2.31 ERA, hasn’t allowed any of five inherited runners to score.

Down To the Final Out
The one characteristic that’s emerged about the 2006 Eagles is their ability to battle from behind. That’s happened time and again, but two instances stand out in particular.

• On April 13 at Hillsdale, AU scored six runs in the seventh inning to wipe out a 5-0 deficit and win 6-5.
• On April 30 in Ashland against Findlay, the Eagles trailed, 8-1 in the fifth inning before rallying for a 9-8 triumph.

Cutting Records
They aren’t recording artists, but the Eagles sure know how to cut records. Some of the chart-climbing efforts are listed below.

• Waters is fourth in career at bats (607) at AU. He’s fifth in career runs (174), hits (217) and games (198).
• Jirsa has 21 doubles this season, the fourth best single-season total in AU history. He’s been hit with pitches 14 times and that’s the fourth highest season mark at AU.
• Davidson’s win total (13) is the third best season mark in school history. He’s tied for fourth in career wins (29). If Davidson can lead the country in wins, he would become the second AU pitcher under John Schaly to do that. Andrew Niederst led the country with 15 wins in 1999. Interestingly, Davidson is tied with Niederst for career wins at Ashland.
• As a team, the Eagles have tied the school single-season mark for doubles (131) established the by 2002 unit.

Nest Eggs

• On this year’s spring trip in Fort Myers, FL, the Eagles were 14-1 and averaged 11.9 runs per game.
• AU’s longest winning streak this year is 11 games.
• The longest hitting streak on the team was put together by Jirsa – 17 games.
• In the regular season, most games are seven-inning affairs (all postseason games are nine innings). In games that lasted nine innings or longer (regularly scheduled and extra innings), AU is 7-4.
• In his career, Barry is 13-for-14 in stolen base attempts.
• Where’s the local Super K-Mart? It’s located wherever Douglas can be found. In 188 career innings, Douglas has 190 strikeouts.
• Associate coach Bart Marchetti is the only player in program history to be with the Eagles every time they’ve advanced to the NCAA Championships. He played on the 1995 team and was an assistant coach in 1999 and 2002.
• Twenty-two of the 26 players on the Ashland roster are from Ohio.
• The two Division I transfers on this year’s team – Richards and Thrasher – have combined to hit .346 with four homers and 59 RBI.
• Waters is best known for his bat, but in the last two years, playing all three outfield spots, he’s made only one error in 99 games.
• Randall is the toughest Eagle to fan, striking out once every 15.2 plate appearances (13-198). Close behind is Hosgood, who’s struck out once every 14.1 at bats (9-127).