Say It Ain't So.........

By no means should Saturday tell the story about this program. Sure! We can make all the cracks about the football program and their doldrums throughout the years and the basketball programs under achievements from time to time, BUT you CANNOT do that with this ball club! We as loyalists to URI and the Baseball program, a program that I believe is still in the infancy of a program on the rise, know what we saw this season (and past seasons for that matter) that maybe the average baseball fan doesn't or hasn't seen yet! Year after year after year this program with what little it has to work with scholarship wise has maximized the abilities of these players to allow them not only to play with some of the better programs but to compete and ultimately this year, certainly raise some eyebrows. Comparatively speaking programs like Miami and Boston College who were both opponents of the Rams this season have entire teams made up of scholarship players all receiving a full ride to school to play baseball, where as at URI the number of scholarships given out to players are less than 5 and some not even full, but only partial amounts.
Saturday's two games were certainly tough to swallow but there are some of us, again not many, that hold out slim hope that the NCAA selection committee will not see Saturday as the entire season for the Rams.
We'll find out at 12:30 today on ESPN the NCAA's Baseball Selection Show. What we do know is that 30 teams receive automatic bids leaving 34 at large bids. So far 9 at large bids have already been selected due to the NCAA picking regional locations in which those teams (all deserving) along with hosting receive an invite to the field of 64. 25 at large remain, does the Atlantic 10 for the first time ever send 2 teams, does the rest of college baseball recognize Rhody and their strength of schedule? I hope as a fan, but more importantly for these kids that they, the selection committee, sees it like we do!

GO RHODY!!!

Love It When A Plan Comes Together!!!

Our A-Team had a plan! With Exceptional pitching and very timely hitting with runners in scoring position Rhody smacked the #1 seed Dayton Flyers right in the mouth in their own backyard of Fifth Third Field in Dayton, Ohio. Fifth Third Field......Really? Sorry getting off subject, we can discuss stupid names for ballparks another time.

Pitcher Nick Greenwood was exceptional and got out of a lot of big jams yesterday by pitching smart and timely double plays giving credit to his defense behind him. He went 8 innings, giving up 10 hits with 5 strike outs and walked nobody! As for offense the Rams had 6 players with 2 hits or more including lead off man Zoey Angulo who had 3 hits along with Dan Rhault, Tom Coulombe and Kenny Burns. Rhody's 2nd thru 6th batters in the line up accumulated all the RBI with Jeff Cammans collecting 3 of his own.

For Dayton it was the beginning of the end as they played again last night and got smoked all over again by Xavier 11-3 getting bounced from what was really their tournament to win.

The work isn't over yet, Rhody plays today at noon where Xavier has to beat them twice in order to take the crown. This one gets under way shortly with Jr. Eric Smith taking the mound for the Rams.

If the Rams can finish the job they will make their second trip to dance with 63 other teams and attempt to make an impact on a much more grand stage!

GO RHODY!!!

Its a Dayt!!! Noon Today!!!

Looking back to yesterday's win over Xavier, its nice to think or to know that this team didn't play its best ball and yet still got the victory. A sign of a good team in itself.

Rhody got good pitching which is whats needed thru this kind of tournament. Tim Boyce went 6 1/3 innings with 3 strikeouts, 4 base on balls and charged with 3 earned runs. After that the Rams used 5 more pitchers which you would think is a lot for this kind of tournament and certainly they'll all be called on again to pitch as early as today if necessary, but they were used strategically with Gardner Leaver and Dan Rossignol (9th) only going a full inning each and Ken Graveline and Mark Fraser each going a 1/3. Luke Demko started the 9th but never recorded an out giving up a base hit and walking two batters.

That's when Rossignol was brought in and came up huge with the go ahead run at the plate, he struck out the first two batters he faced. He did surrender a base hit making the score 7-6 but he got the next batter Xavier CF Adam Pasano who was 1 for 4 on the day to fly out to right to seal the win and to record the save.

Hitting wise, Rhody 2B Oliver Palmer picked the best time to smack his first career grand slam to vault the Rams to a 5 run 5th. Another big RBI came in the bottom of the 8th with 2 outs as 3B Mike LeBel came up with a huge bunt single allowing what would be the winning run to score.

Now the Rams move on to take on Dayton today at noon. Dayton beat up on Umass pretty good yesterday 9-5. Umass managed to rebound pretty well though winning in extra innings over Charlotte 6-5 (10).

A game in which Umass trailed for most of until they rallied in the 7th and 8th to tie it. Eventually scoring two more in the top of the tenth.

So now Umass meets Xavier today at 3:30 with the winner of that game playing again immediately after @ 7pm, against the loser of the URI-Dayton game.

As for Dayton vs. Rhody, Dayton's athletic website is calling it a "Clash of the Titans". You might look back and notice Rhody won all 3 of the regular season match ups, for the most part quite handily too, but that was back on April 4th & 5th. Since then Dayton rolled, only losing 4 more games the entire rest of the regular season. Dayton is a team that can score a lot of runs as can the Rams. This one is going to come down to clutch pitching and timely hitting. Its as simple as that. I expect it to be close all the way thru and won't be the least bit surprised if its the same 2 teams meeting tomorrow afternoon in the finals. In fact, I fully expect that!

For Rhody, this is the "Big Expectations" I was talking about. This season's been great, but talk is cheap. They need to finish what they started!

GO RHODY!!!

Expectations are High!

Before delving into Tournament talk, want to recognize the Atlantic 10 Player of the Year Dan Rhault! A big congrats to him. Certainly looks like there is going to be a lot more baseball to be played in his future after this amazing season!

Also want to recognize Head Coach Jim Foster for posting an incredible 35-18-1 record and for taking this team to the Next Level. Building the most successful baseball program in New England where admittedly popularity is scarce and with wins over N.C. State, Miami, Oklahoma St. and Ohio State the rest of NCAA Baseball is forced to take notice.
Like many that attend Rhody's games, you just admire quietly as he coaches this team, often times you hear him telling his players like it is "good or bad" having to assume that's what these players and assistant coaches respect most about him as he has a way of maximizing his players on field abilities that he's proven year in an year out, culminating into what many would consider this programs most successful year by far even before entering A-10 Tournament play!

Bringing us to today, 3:30pm the Rams play host to Xavier whom they split the 4 meetings with one another (3 in conference play, 1 non-conference). Xavier won yesterday 8-4 in what many might have considered an upset considering the way Chartlotte was playing down the stretch. Umass was also victorious over Fordham 5-4 and now move on to play Dayton today at noon. Charlotte and Fordham faced off last night in the first elimination game of the tournament and it was a barn burner with Charlotte taking it 13-10. Charlotte now awaits the lowest seed of the two losers from the first two games today, with the second elimination game being played tonight at 7pm.
The only way the Rams would find themselves in that elimination game today would be if they lost and so did Dayton. Dayton and Umass did not meet during the regular season so that's a tough one to gauge. As for Rhode Island, a loss would certainly be considered an upset considering their going with their #1 and Xavier having played already.

Going into this tournament even being the #2 seed and also considering my significant bias toward them, you'd have to expect that URI must be considered a big favorite and honestly would be little bit disappointing to not see this team advance to the field of 64. Hate being such that I'm not giving this team the benefit of the doubt, because believe me, when it comes to the baseball program I do, I just think its the lingering effects that Jim Baron and the Basketball program have ingrained!

So 3:30pm today, if they win they play again tomorrow at noon. With a loss, best case scenario they play tomorrow at 3:30 or worst case tonight at 7pm.

You can follow the game on Game Tracker or you can watch thru CBS College Sports for a fee.

GO RHODY!!!

Looking for a Big Finish!

With an 18-5 Conference Record heading into tonight's first game of their final 3 game conference series against St. Louis, Rhody's going to need a little help from the 3rd place Xavier Musketeers if the Rams want to solidify 1st place heading into the A-10 Tournament that starts next Wednesday May 20th in Dayton, OH.

Right now as it stands Dayton has a one game lead in the loss column on Rhody and Xavier cannot do any better than 3rd place as both the Rams and Dayton both own the tie breaker on the Musketeers. Interesting to note of Dayton's 4 losses, 3 of those are to the Rams, so if Rhody can even tie Dayton they would win the tie breaker! Also next to playing Rhody and Charlotte, the Xavier team that Dayton plays this weekend is really the only other solid competition that they've played in conference this season and if you really want to break it down, when Dayton played Charlotte earlier in the season, Charlotte who was predicted to win the A-10 got off to an incredibly slow start and has had a huge second half to even make the A-10 tournament. Otherwise, Dayton has played

some of the worst teams in the conference including Richmond, Duquesne, St. Bonaventure, St. Louis & Richmond. So the records here may be deceiving!

The Rams need to continue playing their game and capitalize off mistakes from last weekends series against UMASS. Solid pitching and timely hitting as they did in the win this past Tuesday over Northeastern will be key! From there a little luck and they should find themselves sitting a top the A-10 heading into the Tournament!

The 3 remaining games for the Rams and Dayton are as follows:

URI

@ St Louis Tonight 8:00pm

@ St Louis Friday 4:00pm

@ St Louis Saturday Noon

Dayton

@ Xavier Today 3:00pm
@ Xavier Friday 1:00pm
@ Xavier Saturday Noon

GO RHODY!!!