Baseball and Softball Recaps Plus Hockey Thoughts

The CMU baseball team has continued to struggle in Florida. They have been 2-3 since the last update on the team. They were swept by Stetson on Tuesday. They were able to get 2 wins by beating Fairfield and Eastern Kentucky. Then they got smothered by Vermont 14-1 on Sunday. The bats have been lively this season as they have a .293 batting average. The team's pitching hasn't been bad, but a 5.13 ERA is definitely not good. The main thing that has hindered the Chips in Florida is their gloves. As a team, they've committed 24 Errors, 16 more than teams have committed while playing against Central.If the Chippewas can limit their fielding errors during MAC play, I think they will be a serious contender for a MAC title. Central has a weekend series in Evansville,In. They will play 3 games in 3 days against 3 different teams.

Softball
Softball has been 3-4 since the last update on Tuesday. They swept the MAane black Bears and then they struggled at the USF Under Armour Invitational. They lost the first 4 games of the event and then they left the event with one win against Villanova. The team has been solid and is now 7-9. With the competition that they faced so far, they look to be a formidable team in the MAC.

Other Stuff
Now its time for me to take my stand for the week. The NHL points system is flawed. When you Win you get 2 points. When you lose in overtime you get one point. So a game that goes into OT suddenly is worth 3 points (one team gets 2, the other gets 1). I think that the NHL should work on making all games worth 3 points. Teams that are able to put away teams in regulation would get 3 points. If you're able to win in OT or the shootout, you get 2 points. Those teams that lose in OT is 1 point. The team that loses in regulation still gets nothing. The reason I think this would work is because it would the last 5 minutes of regulation in a tie game that much more exciting. It would make teams press harder during those minutes to get that extra point. This would blow point totals out of proportion, so the records of the past that pertain to most points in a season would have some protection. When the overtime loss stat was thrown in the standing in the 99-00 season, people complained that it made the Standings that much more difficult to read. That may be a problem for the average fan still, but it would make sure every game is of the same importance.

With that being said, I believe it is really exciting for hockey to see that with 11-13 games left for all teams, only 2 teams are mathematically eliminated. But, I don't see the playoff picture changing much in the western conference as Vancouver and Calgary (#8 and #6 respectively) have 2 games in hand over the 9th team, Nashville. I don't see Colorado losing enough to get the Predators into the playoffs.

In the Eastern Conference, its actually much more interesting as the 6th place team and the 12th place team are separated by 10 points. The 6,7, and 8 teams all have a game in hand over the 9-12 teams, so as of this second the teams that are in won't change at all in my mind. The seeding of those teams, on the other hand, will almost definitely be shaken up at some point during the next couple of weeks.