TCU & New Mexico in the 2010 NCAA Baseball Regional Tournaments

The two top teams of the Mountain West Conference have been invited to the NCAA Regional games. In the Fort Worth Bracket, the TCU Horned Frogs will face off with the Lamar Cardinals. The Horned Frogs will play host as they confront a team that posted a 35-24 overall record and finished in 6th place in the Southland Conference. They earned an NCAA invitation by beating Texas State 17-7. TCU should have no problem pushing them aside and playing against either Baylor or Arizona. If they play against Baylor, the state of Texas will be out in full force. Baylor is representing one of the giant conferences, and although the Baylor Bears had a decent overall record of 34-22, they must be respected. They play in the Big 12 conference that features Texas, Oklahoma, Texas A&M, and Texas Tech. Baylor is led by senior infielder Raynor Campbell. He led the Bears with a .350 batting average. On the power side, they have two freshmen who can hit the long ball; Vick Logan, and Max Muncy. Their pitching is not as deep as TCU’s, but Logan Verrett and Willie Kempf will try to be at their best. I don’t think TCU will struggle too much against the Bears. If anything, they may have a drop or two of sweat against Arizona.

After dropping from the national polls over the last couple of weeks, Arizona is no longer in the top 30. They play in a tough Pac 10 Conference that have 3 teams nationally ranked. The Wildcats struggled and dropped to 7th place in the Pac 10, and as they face a monumental TCU club, I suspect they will be susceptible to a TCU pitching staff that seems hittable. Arizona’s outfield Steve Selsky, who had the second best batting average in the Pac 10 will have to be swinging well. Their ace pitcher Seth Blair will take his 11-0 record and 3.20 ERA against TCU. The Horned Frogs moved up to 5 th in the national polls; they have the 15th best team batting average despite not having 1 hitter in the top 100. The real strength and depth of TCU comes from their pitching. They have the 12th best ERA in the nation. They have a formidable 1-2-3 pitching punch that should enable them to easily take over the Fort-Worth Regional. They’ll probably pitch Matt Purke first. They say this freshman turned down a deal with the Texas Rangers after high school in order to play for TCU. Then, we’ll probably see Kyle Winkler, and as a series sweeping tool, they’ll throw Steven Maxwell. So far, this combination has them riding the national polls on a puffy Texan cloud.

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The only other Mountain West Conference team that is representing in the NCAA regional tournaments are the New Mexico Lobos. They finished second in the conference behind TCU, and in the final game of the conference championship lost a tight game 2-0. Their first game is against Stanford Cardinals. The Cardinals were up in the polls for a while, but after a series of important losses have completely dropped off the charts. The New Mexico Lobos do rank highly offensively (6th) with a team batting average of .352, but their problems will come from their pitching. They rank 104th in that department while Stanford is 55th. By the way the Lobos played TCU; I think they have a good chance of beating Stanford. But, if they do, they will most likely have to face Cal State Fullerton. The Titans have a powerful program year after year and are no strangers in Nebraska. At the end, the tournament will exhaust their pitching and if Rafael Neda and Justin Howard don’t pick up the offensive slack their odds of winning practically disappears. Fullerton ranks lower than TCU in pitching, but pitchers like Noe Ramirez will come in with an ERA of 2.84 to try and quiet the Lobos howls. But, when it comes to hitting they handle things with a flare. They are the 10 th best hitting team in the country and New Mexico will see big hitters from Fullerton like outfielder Gary Brown who is the 9th best hitter in college baseball with a batting average of .438. I understand that anything can happen in a baseball game. Anybody can win any given game, but for the Lobos to win Fullerton would have to lose twice and I don’t see that being predicted by the stars over Southern California. Whatever may happen, let’s enjoy two Mountain West Conference teams express themselves in front of the national media. I believe TCU has a chance to stride into Nebraska and win their schools first national title. New Mexico on the other hand will do well, but they will fall to Fullerton at the end. Baseball takes time to develop, it requires setting a paced rhythm of innings, throwing strikes, and playing flawless defense. Let’s watch it unfold in the month of June.

By: Adrian Nevarez
DFN Sports Staff Writer