The Magic Number
Just over a year ago the Wabash baseball team defeated the undefeated and number-one ranked College of Wooster. As I was wrapping up the broadcast that day, I talked about the progress of the team, and that a win over a program like Wooster didn't mean the Little Giants had finally arrived at their goal of becoming a better baseball program. They had only taken another step.
Now Wabash is poised to take one more step --- its first trip to the North Coast Athletic Conference baseball tournament. The Little Giants have already taken two steps toward that goal in two earlier series this year. The first was when Wabash took a 3-1 series from perennial Western Division power Ohio Wesleyan on the road. The Little Giants had never taken a series from the Battling Bishops before, and had lost 14 of their last 15 games against OWU.
The next step came last weekend against Denison. Wabash split the season series against the Big Red, thanks in part to a tremendous pitching effort from freshman Brian Van Duyn in Sunday's final game and the hitting of Matt Dodaro and Tanner Coggins in Saturday's extra inning affair. The split put Wabash a game behind Denison in the NCAC standings with two conference series remaining for the Little Giants.
Monday night the Little Giants split with a much-improved Earlham baseball team in Richmond, Indiana. The loss was a slight stumble for Wabash. However, Ohio Wesleyan completed its 16-game conference schedule by taking two games at Wittenberg to finish 10-6 in league play.
Now comes the mathematics portion of today's blog --- the magic number. With apologies to Professor Mike Axtell and the rest of the math department at Wabash, I'll give you the formula to calculate the magic number.
G 1-W(a)-L(b), where G = total games, W(a) is the number of wins that team A has in the season, and L(b) is the number of losses team B has in the season.
To break down what means in the case of the Little Giants --- Wabash has to win four games out of its remaining six conference games to make the NCAC Tournament. If Denison (8-4 in the NCAC currently) sweeps Earlham in the Big Red's final series this weekend, Wabash would need to win all six games to earn the top seed from the West.
A tall order? You bet, but so was beating Ohio Wesleyan at OWU and taking no worse than a split against Denison. So was beating Wooster last year on its home field. This Little Giant team is no longer worried about what they're not supposed to be able to do. They are focused squarely on what they want to do.
Keep an eye on that magic number this weekend when Wabash plays a four-game set against Wittenberg at Mud Hollow Field. Let's see if it can go all the way to zero.
Last week I wrote about Joshua Kendrick '97 leading the Brownsburg Bulldogs to the Indiana High School Athletic Association 4A state basketball championship. I just learned another Wabash alumnus took his high school basketball team to the state's 3A crown.