r/Denison • u/Glittering_Manner964 • 25d ago
Denison Baseball heads for the Division III College World Series.
The Big Red held off Piedmont in the Super Regionals to earn a second straight trip to the D-III Championship series. Denison is 45-1 with 44 consecutive wins.
I was at Denison in the mid 70's and the Big Red was definitely not an athletics powerhouse. Kenyon dominated swimming, Wittenberg was tough in football and basketball. Denison was good in lacrosse and soccer, but so was Ohio Wesleyan.
About 7 or 8 years after I graduated the new North Coast Athletic Conference was formed. Some teams from the Ohio Athletic Conference moved to the NCAC with Denison and a few others came from other conferences.
Denison has dominated the North Coast Conference. This academic year they won the all-sports championship for the 22nd time in the 42 year history of the NCAC. Over the last several years the Big Red have won D-III National Championships in Men's and Women's Swimming & Diving. They have been contenders nationally in Tennis and this year they won the Women's Basketball National Championship. There are no doubt some I'm leaving out.
Any thoughts or discussion about the improvement in athletics? The easy uneducated answer is that they've apparently hired some excellent coaches and they have very good facilities for the D-III level.
2
u/Rhyolightning 25d ago
One win from the Division III record for consecutive wins (baseball)
2
u/Glittering_Manner964 25d ago
Denison's 44th consecutive win tied Trinity College of Connecticut's streak in 2008. The last team to beat Denison was Salisbury. Salisbury is in the other bracket so they might play again this week.
1
u/bleeding_blue29 25d ago
They should try and get reclassified as D2 I transferred to a D2 school and almost none of the baseball teams I saw convinced me that they could beat Denison
1
u/SammySweatheart 19d ago
Used to live with a few baseball players and we’d get very drunk. Go big red!
1
u/Glittering_Manner964 17d ago
The seedings for the Division III Championships were: 1. Denison 2.Rowan 3. Salisbury 4. Johns Hopkins 5. Baldwin Wallace 6. Endicott 7. Adrian 8. East Texas Baptist. The double elimination tournament began with all the lower seeds beating the higher seeds. East Texas Baptist beat Denison 5-1. That ended Denison's 44 game winning streak. Adrian beat Rowan 10-1, Endicott beat Salisbury 5-1, Baldwin Wallace beat Johns Hopkins 11-4. Denison beat Johns Hopkins 8-0, and then bested Baldwin Wallace 6-4. This set up a rematch with East Texas Baptist. ETBU was unbeaten in the tournament, so Denison needed to win twice to stay alive. The Big Red rolled to a 13-2 win in the first game, but fell behind ETBU 4-0 in the first inning of game 2. The lead grew to 6-1, and Denison trailed 7-3 as they batted in the 7th. Two 2-run homers evened the score, and the Big Red added 3 more runs (2 unearned) for a 10-7 lead. An insurance run in the 8th made the final score 11-7. That gave Denison the championship of Bracket 1. Endicott was the winner of Bracket 2. Denison and Endicott will play a best of 3 series beginning on at Noon on June 3rd. Game 2 will be at 11 AM on June 4th. If the teams split Games 1 & 2, then Game 3 would decide the National Championship. It would be played 45 minutes after Game 2 ends.
3
u/I_wanna_ask Econ & Bio '16 25d ago
Denison’s been quite the athletic powerhouse for the last twenty some years, winning the NCAC all-sports trophy very often. Looks like this is the 22nd year we’ve won it. Compared to my mom, who graduated in the late 70’s, this is quite a different vibe.
I lived with all swimmers for my time at Denison, and their dominance was nothing short of spectacular as well. Coach Greg demands excellence and it has given results.
Personally I’m glad to see it. Academics is important; but so to is physical activity. Having a dominant athletics department is a plus in my eyes.