BB: GNAC: Great Northeast Athletic Conference

[Catch08]

WNEC is leaving because they want to get into a conf. that has football no GNAC school has a football team. The GNAC is picking up 3 teams to negate the departure of WNEC. St Joes of Maine Mt Ida and LaSalle are coming into the league. There are also more then 8 schools but the other ones are all girl schools. So we lose WNEC but bring in a very good St Joe team

[MSG77]

WNEC is leaving because they want to get into a conf. that has football no GNAC school has a football team. The GNAC is picking up 3 teams to negate the departure of WNEC. St Joes of Maine Mt Ida and LaSalle are coming into the league. There are also more then 8 schools but the other ones are all girl schools. So we lose WNEC but bring in a very good St Joe team

Ahh... I should have guessed.  Seems 9 times out of 10 if you ask any question about conference alignment, the answer always somehow involves football.  I guess even in NE, where college football's impact is minimal at best, it still factors into the equation.

I didn't realize the GNAC had more teams that were girls schools.  With just a quick look, it seemed that most of the GNAC schools were along either I-91 or I-90, which made it fairly convenient travelwise from Springfield.  I know the 2 schools in the CCC in RI are right on Narragansett Bay (Salve is in Newport and RWU is in Bristol).  They aren't easy to get to, even if you live in RI.  I thought a lot of the teams in the CCC were also very small schools in hard to reach locations.

Thanks for the info though.

[Paul Heering]

Catch08,

Thanks for the info on why WNEC is leaving.  Question though, is this first hand info or are you guessing?  not judging you but that theory doesn't make sense

you said the reason was...

WNEC is leaving because they want to get into a conf. that has football no GNAC school has a football team.

Norwich is in the GNAC and they play football (not in NEFC with WNEC)
The CCC has four teams that play in the NEFC---Endicott, Nichols, Curry, & Salve--that is only 1/3 of the CCC.  i can't see how that would motivate the move.

I have other guesses as they might want to leave but they would only be guesses.

[Ralph Turner]

Four schools is enough to form the core for a football AQ if they can:
--add 3 affiliate members,
--maintain a stable conference for 2 years and
--then seek an AQ for the CCC.

[Ralph Turner]

Norwich is a valuable member of the E8 as an affiliate.  They give the E8 its AQ by being the 7th football playing member in the conference.

[JOUL]

From a baseball standpoint, WNEC's move may not be the best, but for the school as a whole, im sure its beneficial overall.

[Catch08]

This is all first hand knowledge about WNEC. I play in the GNAC and went to a couple of conference meetings and this is what we were told. Im sure there are always stories behind stories why they are leaving but this is why I was told they were leaving.

[Paul Heering]

Thanks catch08.   wasn't trying to say were wrong just wondering.  Ralph's theory about the CCC now having enough teams to break off and then have the CCC sponsor football is interesting.  they would have 5 full time members with football(endicott, curry, salve, nichols, and wnec) and would only have to get two more football members (i would assume they might target the non-mascac football schools that are already in the NEFC--MIT, Plymouth state, maine maritime, coast guard, umass dartmouth).  i am 100% guessing though

[newenglandman]

     I’m writing to comment on how poor I think the GNAC coaches did in picking award winners.  How is it that WNEC rolls through the conference, sweeps the conference tourney, and is ranked highly in New England all year, but can’t win one major award from the conference?  Let’s take a look at the numbers.

Player of the Year – Alex Hurley – Johnson and Wales.  This is the one pick I totally agree with.  He is the best all-around player in the league and possibly an All-American selection.  Great year Alex.  Here are his numbers:

INDIVIDUAL BATTING
Min 1.5 AB/Team game         G   Avg  AB    R    H  RBI   2B   3B   HR   BB
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alex Hurley JWU...........  39  .421 152   52   64   47   14    3    9   20

He also stole 28-29 bases. 

Pitcher of the Year – Isaac Burkett – Rivier (this is a joke).  Let’s take a look at the stats:

INDIVIDUAL PITCHING
Minimum 5 IP               App   ERA  W-L  Sv    IP   H   R  ER  BB  SO
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Eric Smolin WNE...........   7  1.53  6-1   0  53.0  40  12   9  11  46
Isaac Burkett RIV.........   7  1.73  4-3   0  36.1  27  10   7  11  42
Erik Hufnagel JWU.........   8  2.11  6-1   0  42.2  34  18  10  16  54

   Burkett’s a decent arm, but nowhere in the league of Smolin from WNEC.  Burkett started against WNEC during the regular season and didn’t even last 3 innings.  He has no big wins and doesn’t even have the stats of Smolin.  He does have more k/9, but that is a totally irrelevant stat.  Burkett did not pitch against Suffolk during the regular season and only pitched 2 innings against WNEC, but still got tagged with the loss.  He got 1 win against Johnson & Wales, but the other 3 are against cupcake teams. 
   But look at Smolin.  He just ran his record to 7-1 with a win against Wheaton College.  Here’s his line: 9 ip, 4 hits, 0 ER, 9 k.  Smolin’s wins: Johnson and Wales, Brandeis, Johnson and Wales, Rivier, Albertus Magnus, Obbertein (#1 in nation at the time), and now Wheaton.  His one loss came to Cortland State (#2 in nation) in his first start of the year.  Smolin is a big game pitcher who should have been Pitcher of the Year is not for bad GNAC coaches ticked off about WNEC leaving the league next year. 
   Hufnagel even has a better case than Burkett.  At least he’s well above .500 winning percentage.  He’s also got more k’s/9.  I just don’t understand how any pitcher with a 4-3 record can claim to be the Pitcher of the Year for their league.  Smolin will end up All-New England and possibly even a draft pick, while Burkett sits home with his coach telling him how good he is. 

Coach of the Year – Bill Maniotis (biggest joke of them all)
   Here’s a coach who leads his team to a 4th place league finish with an 8-6 conference record and an 11-13 record overall.  Remember too that this is a very weak conference once you get past WNEC, Suffolk, and Johnson & Wales (5th place team finished at 5-9 conference and 12-16 overall).  I could maybe understand if Rivier wins the conference tournament, but they make a weak showing in the conference tournament by going 0-2 to be the first team sent home.  I’m not quite sure what Maniotis did that was so worthy of being coach of the year.  In fact, he led his team to a 4th place regular season last year and a 3rd place conference tournament finish.  His team from last year graduated ZERO players.  So with the same players, his team actually finished worse than last year.  It’s not like he did a hell of a job recruiting some talent and moving up in the conference.  They finished in the exact same spot in the regular season and did worse in the conference tournament.  Good job coach. 
   Compare this with WNEC.  WNEC’s coach (Matt LaBranche) loses his All-American player to graduation, his #2 starting pitcher to arm injury (Pizzoferrato), a starting position player to injury (Newell) and still manages to win the regular season GNAC title (12-2 conference record, 26-8 overall).  They then cruise through the conference tournament.  In the latest NCAA regional poll, they are ranked 2nd in New England.  I’m not sure what else you have to do to be recognized in the GNAC as the coach of the year.  I mean, WNEC also was the champion last year after losing at least 5 all-conference players to graduation.  Maniotis from Rivier was coach of the year that year too for his fine job of finishing in 4th place and failing to qualify for the NCAA tournament. 
   I’m just baffled about how a team can finish 11-13 overall and the coach is named coach of the year.  Sounds like the coaches who vote on this don’t like WNEC because they are leaving.  What’s funny is that LaBrance has a vote for the All-America team this year.  I bet you he is too much of professional to let some problems with GNAC coaches come between Hurley and All-American.  If he thinks Hurley is deserving, he’ll vote for the kid. 

Rookie of the Year -  Corey Hayes - Rivier
   I’m not sure who the best rookie in the league was because stats are so hard to find for GNAC teams.  But I do know that Hayes didn’t even make 1st or 2nd team all-league.  The Walz kid from WNEC is all league 2nd team at second base and a two-time GNAC player of the week, but can’t win this award.  He also plays on a highly ranked team in New England. 

Walz’s stats: 123 ABs, .301 ave., 43 hits, 4 doubles, 4 triples, 1 hr, 22 rbi, 25 BBs, 2-3 SBs, .957 fld. %.  Led conference in triples.  Also batted .378 in conference games. 

Hayes’s stats: .338 average, no other information available except to say his defense was "stellar".  No GNAC player of the week awards.

   Again, I’m not sure if Walz’s stats are better than Hayes’s.  But I do know that they are at least comparable, especially when you factor in that Walz bats in the 2-hole and plays one of the toughest schedules in the GNAC.  Maybe if Rivier posted some better stats, we could have more data for a comparison.  Even so, when you have such a close decision, I really think you have to factor in strength of schedule and wins-losses. 

   So after all of this, we are left with one simple conclusion.  The GNAC is better called the Gross-NAC.  Rivier finishes 11-13 and wins pitcher of the year, coach of the year, and rookie of the year.   WNEC goes 26-8 and gets 2 All-GNAC first team selections and 3 second team selection. 

       I think the problem with the GNAC is you have a bunch of really bad teams with really bad coaches.  Outside of WNEC, Suffolk, and Johnson and Wales, there are five terrible teams (Rivier, Daniel Webster, Albertus Magnus, Norwich, and Emerson) that are never above .500.  These five teams are able to use their majority power to play favorites and make sure their players win awards even though they might not deserve them.  The five coaches get five votes for all the major awards and have a hard time giving the big hardware to the players and coaches from teams that kick their butts all year long.  WNEC beat Rivier by scores of 7-1, 12-2, and 13-4 this year.  It’s got to be hard to swallow those losses and cast a vote for the players and coach that beat you like that.  But while Burkett, Maniotis, and Hayes are home saying how great it would be to win 12 games next year, WNEC can go for the real hardware at the Regional. 

I hope WNEC gets a fair shake each year in the CCC and the kids won’t get short-changed by coaches who are jealous of their success. 

[Catch08]

Ok Newenglandman have you ever played the game before Do you know how they pick the first and second teams. You sound like a bitter WNEC fan who wants the whole team placed on the first team. There is no question that Hurley should have been POY the kid is nasty. Ill give you Burkett didnt deserve Pitcher of the Year because he wasnt.  Smolin was. The kid was unreal didnt have the arm of Burkett but he did have better command of all his pitches. Burkett was the best thrower but Smolin best pitcher and the one pitcher that nobody in the league wanted to face. Now let me get into why your a tool. WNEC lost an All American. THATS IT they brought everyone else back. Anderson and Pizzo along with all of there hitting. How can you say that the bottom teams are awful with bad coaches ? When your making your case for Smolin you say he beats Albertus. And by the way Albertus won the GNAC about 3 years ago so know what your talking about. They also beat Suffolk this year with all of Suffolks guns in and played ESCU to 5-1 in 9 innings which is 9th in the country. Have you ever played the game ? Is everything about awards. There are alot of deserving kids that get left off of the all-star teams or all conf teams. whatever its not that big of a deal. Why dont you look at why WNEC always wins rather then just looking at these other teams cant win. WNEC has full time staff so they can recruit all day and be in the office. There only jobs are to be on campus doing baseball activities. They dont work 9-5 jobs then have to come recruit have practices then go on the road. WNEC has state of the art facilities. So instead of getting on your laptop and saying these coaches are awful why dont you do a sit up try and do what these coaches do for about 3,000 dollars a season. Its not an easy thing. Stats are nice but how about thinking what did this kid do in a big spot ? Did he strike out with the bases loaded ? Or did his hits come when the game was a blow out or with nobody on. Its easy to get on a kid when you just look at stats. Plenty of people were left off the GNAC teams that should have made it. Dont go crying for a WNEC team that gets all of the calls and all of the awards anyways. The overal goal of a team to do is to win the league and go to regionals.  So WNEC is doing that good for them but dont call other teams coaches bad when you cant even coach a girls tee ball team. So hide behind your computer you punk. While you cry for all of the WNEC kids because they didnt get awards they didnt deserve.

[JOUL]

Catch08...pretty upset about that post from before huh?  I assume you play in the GNAC?...The one thing I can say is that it did look like alot of the awards were suspect at best.  And you speak of players needing to do things in big spots, WNEC did blow everybody out of the water, in the tourny...which is when it counts.  It sounds like you are pretty upset about this, but you know that the post from before was pretty accurate in most cases.

[Ralph Turner]

Just an outside observation...

Is WNEC leaving the GNAC for the CCC?

Then is this recent voting possibly a "don't let the door hit your back side on the way out" matter? 

"You think that you are better than we are? Well, take your game somewhere else!"

Just curious...

[JOUL]

Also, I just read that Smolin was throwing 92-93 against JWU.   So you are telling me that Burkett throws harder than that.  I dont know for sure, but I really think we would have heard much more about him if was throwing 94mph.  Your facts arent lining up buddy.

[JOUL]

Ralph,

I would have to say you were right on with that assumption!

[StraightGas]

Catch08,

First of all, WNEC has one paid coach.  That's Matt LaBranche.  He also teaches at WNEC, so he's not a full-time only baseball guy.  WNEC raises money for their assisant coaches.  So raise money for your coach so he is more motivated to recruit better.

Secondly, WNEC should have won every award besides Player of the Year.  When has an MLB coach ever won a Coach of the Year with a losing record? 

Thirdly, you said "Stop hiding behind your computer, you punk"... If you play in the GNAC, what's your name and who do you play for?  Stop bashing everyone's valid opinions while hiding behind your computer.

And NewEnglandMan, righteous post on the faults of the GNAC.