Episode 72: 2021 New England Region Preview

Welcome to Episode 72 of The Podcast About Division III Baseball. This is our sixth of eight regional preview pods -- this one covers the New England region and its seven conferences. Topics include: CCC (at 1:40) Salve Regina (at 2:00) is the class of this conference and boasts two of the best strikeout pitchers in the region atop their rotation Teams (at 4:50) like Endicott, Roger Williams, Western New England, and Nichols will need to have a lot go right to compete with the Seahawks GNAC (at 7:10) The last 12 titles have gone to either St. Joseph's (Maine) or Suffolk...maybe this is the year a team like Johnson & Wales could break the streak? LEC (at 10:20) Southern Maine might be returning the most loaded #Year5 squad in the entire country and make have opened up an unusually large gap on their conference competition UMass-Boston has been a perennial regional team but with a late start and a lot of new faces in the lineup, there's more questions than normal entering their season. We still love the Beacons, though. Rhode Island has emerged as a strong sleeper but lost some key pieces from their pitching staff UMass-Dartmouth, Eastern Connecticut, and Castleton will probably hang around this conversation as well MASCAC (at 19:15) Westfield State will probably continue to run the show but their legendary 1-2 punch is gone so maybe there's room for a team like Fitchburg State, Worcester State, or Salem State to contend NECC (at 21:28) Mitchell has been putting up big win totals vs. bad competition in recent years but now are starting to look more like a legitimately fearsome regional contender New England College had one hell of a run in the 2019 postseason but now their coach and some of their best players departed for conference rival Eastern Nazarene, ooooo spicy spicy!!! NESCAC (at 28:20) It seems that only four teams will be participating in this conference in this pandemic season, with Tufts and Trinity (CT) likely the ones fighting for the title NEWMAC (at 34:30) Babson is losing some key contributors and won't have the traditionally insane SOS to boost their resume. Beavers are always good, though.  Wheaton (Mass.) is now more than just a Really Good Fundamental Baseball Team -- they've got super high-end talent that makes them a legitimate World Series contender MIT isn't playing, which is a bummer UAA Brandeis (at 40:15) are gonna have a tough time scheduling with all the conference-only restrictions but their roster actually looks pretty solid! We concluded (at 41:30) with our player and pitcher of the year picks for the region, and our teams to beat. Then we say goodbye. Thanks for listening! Follow us on Twitter @d3baseballpod (DMs are open if you want to reach us there) and @CespedesBBQ.  Send us your best D-III stories or any other comments or questions to [email protected] Subscribe + rate/review on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-podcast-about-division-iii-baseball/id1342691759