Area Athletes Batting in NCAA Division III Baseball
There are 146 area NCAA baseball players in Div. III. That is amazing because there are only 4 DIII's in MO and none in KS. These men love baseball, and will travel to get to their dugout of choice.
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Baseball Division III Pitching
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There are 146 Kansas and Missouri baseball players playing in NCAA Division III. As noted in the sub-title, that is an amazing number given that there are only 4 DIII school in these two states. And those four are huddled East of Columbia, Missouri. And it’s not just those rosters where you find local baseball talent. These guys are spread out over 54 colleges in 27 different conferences. They come from 95 high schools to find dugouts at Case Western Reserve in the University Athletic Association and Vassar in the Liberty League. One found a home to the East at the Merchant Marine Academy while another went West to Pomona-Pitzer. Half of them got to the plate this year. Most who didn’t were warming up in the bullpen.
For statistics involving a ratio, I am looking at 75 or more at bats. All data is as of May 12.
There are 20 batters who have met the minimum of 75 at bats. Sharing the most at 157 are Eric Creech (Troy Buchanan/Fontbonne University) and Nick Harms (Parkway West/Case Western Reserve).
Leading in batting average is a junior, Christian Garcia (Blue Springs/Wisconsin-Superior) with an outstanding average of .444. Other strong performances at the plate were generated by Colby Shivers (Rolla/Fontbonne University) at .379, Mitchell Eckardt (Liberty-Wentzville/Coe College) at .372, Ty Murray (St. James Academy/Vassar College) at .372, Nick Harms (Parkway West/Case Western Reserve) at .357, and Charles Cahalan (Bishop Miege/Merchant Marine Academy) who is hitting .357 in his rookie year of college ball.
OPS is a statistic that combines the on base percentage with the slugging percentage. It is a good measure of consistency and power. There are 5 with an OPS greater than 1.000. They are Nick Harms (Parkway West/Case Western Reserve) at 1.138, Christian Garcia (Blue Springs/Wisconsin-Superior) at 1.134, Spencer Keiser (Winfield MO/Westminster MO) at 1.093, Colby Shivers (Rolla/Fontbonne University) at 1.042, and Carter Lee (Lafayette-Wildwood/Fontbonne University). All of those are outstanding.
Any discussion of power will involve home runs. The leader in round trips among these batters is Carter Lee (Lafayette-Wildwood/Fontbonne University) with 13 home runs. The freshman leader in home runs is Nathan Eye (Parkway South/Greenville University) with 3. Carter also has the second highest number of total bases at 96 and the second highest slugging percentage of .671. The leader in those two categories is Nick Harms (Parkway West/Case Western Reserve) with 102 and .688, respectively. That is a lot of hitting, especially against University Athletic Association pitching.
Eric Creech (Troy Buchanan/Fontbonne University) leads in stolen bases with 15 in 18 attempts. The most steals by a freshman is Charles Cahalen (Bishop Miege/Merchant Marine Academy) with 9. That is also the most by anyone without having been thrown out.
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I have more DIII Softball coming. Plus, you won’t want to miss my postseason reviews of awards, honors, and statistical rankings.
Following is a spreadsheet that contains 22 statistics on all 146 baseball players.
