February 9, 2007

SUWANEE, Ga. -- Based on voting by the head coaches in the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC), Millsaps College is the favorite to win the 2007 conference baseball championship.

The Majors, who shared the SCAC title with Trinity University last season, received six of the 10 coaches’ votes. Trinity received three votes while Southwestern University picked up the remaining vote.

As for the division races, DePauw University is the favorite in the East, while Millsaps and Trinity are the co-favorites in the West.

In the East, three different schools received first-place votes. DePauw and Rhodes College, which is moving over from the West this season, each received two votes, while Centre College picked up the remaining first-place nod.

Just as it was in the East voting, three schools received first-place votes in the polling among the West coaches. Millsaps and Trinity each received two first-place votes while Southwestern received one.

Change continues to be the buzzword in the SCAC as Austin College begins its first season of conference competition, replacing Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. The Kangaroos will play in the West division, necessitating the move of Rhodes to the East. Birmingham-Southern College joins the SCAC in 2008.

One first-year head coach makes his debut this season – R.J. Thomas at Hendrix College. Thomas, who takes over the Warrior program from Lane Stahl, was the team’s pitching coach and recruiting coordinator.

Another change in the league involves the post-season tournament format. For the first time, the top four teams from each division will meet in a crossover tournament, Friday-Sunday, April 20-22, at Millington USA Field in Memphis, Tennessee. The four winners of those best-of-three series qualify for the SCAC Baseball Tournament, which will be played the following weekend at Southwestern University as part of the 2007 Spring Sports Festival.

At the 2006 Baseball Championships, Trinity and Millsaps had to split the SCAC crown after rain forced the cancellation of the second and deciding game between the two. Millsaps, who had lost 12-9 to Trinity earlier in the tournament, defeated the Tigers 18-10 in Sunday’s first contest – a game that was played despite high winds and a torrential downpour. The last time the conference had to declare co-champions in baseball was in 1990, when both Millsaps and Trinity had the same record at the season-ending CAC round-robin tournament.

Both Trinity and Millsaps went on to represent the SCAC at the 2006 NCAA Tournament – Trinity as the league’s AQ and Millsaps as an at-large recipient. Trinity was the No. 2 seed at the NCAA West Regional where Coach Tim Scannel’s team defeated Texas Lutheran before bowing out with losses to Chapman and George Fox.

Millsaps, seeded second in the NCAA Central Region, advanced to the region final with victories over Webster, Aurora and Mt. St. Joseph. Coach Jim Page’s Majors needed just one win over Aurora to become the first SCAC team to advance to the NCAA Division III World Series, but it was not meant to be. Millsaps was defeated twice by Aurora, 8-6 and 12-11, on the final day of competition.