University of St. Thomas Athletics
18-3, 5-2
Macalester
13-9-1, 1-4
Gene's Blog: It's Tuesdays with Morrie... and Murrey
4/13/2010 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
Sports fans will find several interesting events this week on or near the St. Thomas campus.
Weather permitting, the fun starts today.
--Two of the Midwest Region's best pitchers -- 2010 pro draft prospects James Murrey of Macalester and Matt Schuld of UST -- will be on display at Koch Diamond in baseball when No. 1-ranked St. Thomas plays a doubleheader against the Scots. Today's two seven-inning games start at 2:30 p.m.
--Softball coach John Tschida will coach his 700th college game on Saturday with a 1 p.m. home doubleheader against St. Catherine. The Tommies also play home softball doubleheaders today against St. Mary's and Wednesday against Hamline (both 4 p.m. starts).
--Journalist and best-selling author Mitch Albom (Tuesdays with Morrie, The Five People You Meet in Heaven) will speak on the St. Thomas campus at 7:30 p.m. on Sunday April 18. (http://www.stthomas.edu/bulletin/2010/04/09/'tuesdays-with-morrie'-author-mitch-albom-to-speak-here-april-18/?WT.ac=ulc10099.usthp1)
--Former NFL quarterback Rich Gannon will be a speaker Sunday night on the Tommie campus as the Minnesota chapter of the National Football Foundation holds its annual dinner.
--The Tommie men's track and field team hosts a Friday night meet at O'Shaughnessy Stadium that includes several Minnesota Gopher athletes as well as numerous top D-III squads.
--St. Thomas and Macalester will play in men's and women's tennis this weekend on the Scots' courts, one mile from UST. The men's winner could have the inside track on a top-three MIAC finish.
And if a road trip sounds appealing, the Tommies' No. 1-ranked men's club lacrosse team plays No. 7-ranked St. John's next Saturday at 1 p.m. at Clemens Stadium in Collegeville.
Tuesday's games
Last week, the wind was blowing in when St. John's and St. Thomas played two baseball games at Koch Diamond. The teams combined to score just eight runs on a day when the wind aided the pitchers.
It looks like a strong wind will blow out from home plate for today's home games against Macalester. This could be a day for the hitters and will test the pitchers' ability to keep the ball down in the strike zone.
The 2010 Tommies lead Division III with a 2.31 earned-run average. In St. Thomas' last 32 games dating back to May 2009, they are 28-4 and haven't allowed more than five runs in any games.
Macalester's Murrey, who has never faced the Tommies, has been outstanding on his career despite limited run support. He's 23-11 with a 2.38 ERA and 258 strikeouts and 76 walks in 215 innings.
UST's Schuld, 4-0 this season, is 24-3 on his career including two wins against the Scots. The senior right hander is 10-0 in his last 11 starts dating back to last April 28, with eight complete games. The only game he didn't win he worked 12 innings of a 17-inning Tommie victory over UW-Stevens Point in the NCAA regional playoffs. On his career, Schuld has 3.08 ERA with 189 strikeouts and 83 walks in 213 innings. In five career NCAA playoff games, he is 3-1 with a 1.95 ERA, including two NCAA elimination-game wins last May on short rest.
Meanwhile in softball. Tschida will face his alma mater and former St. Mary's program today on the South Field. Senior All-American Alison Wright, who has an 18-game hitting streak, needs nine hits to become the MIAC career leader.
Almost perfect
Chris Olean will mark a unique 10-year anniversary this week.
The Tommies' interim head baseball coach was in his first season in Class A baseball with the Milwaukee Brewers' organization back in April 2000. After leading St. Thomas to the College World Series and an NCAA runner-up finish in 1999, Olean was a 17th-round draft pick of the Brewers.
Olean pitched in the Rookie League in summer 1999 in Ogden, Utah, and was assigned to the Beloit (Wis.) 
Snappers in 2000 in the Class A Midwest League. He came into April as a middle-reliever in a Brewers' farm system that had an abundance of young pitchers. On the April 15 trip to Iowa. Olean was given his first Class A start for a game in Davenport against the Quad City River Bandits . The game was in the same park where Jake and Joe Mauer would later play their first Class A season with Quad Cities.
"I was feeling sick all day and a little weak and stayed in bed much of the day," Olean said. "I had a little sink to my ball that night, and I was getting a ton of ground outs."
Before you knew it, Olean had retired the first 24 batters and took a 5-0 lead and a perfect game into the bottom of the ninth inning.
But the River Bandits' Matt Scanlon -- a former Minnesota Gopher player -- led off the ninth inning with a broken-bat double down the left-field line. Olean lost the no-hitter and eventually the shutout, but he got a complete-game one-hitter. He threw just 73 pitchers and never had a three-ball count.
Olean had played against Scanlon in high school. Last summer, Olean had a chance to play golf with the former Gopher. "I still joke with him that of all his minor-league at-bats, he couldn't just let that one go," Olean said.
Olean had one of the best seasons ever by a conference pitcher as a senior in 1999. He was named first team All-American with a 9-2 record, including a 1-0 nine-inning loss to North Carolina Wesleyan in the NCAA title game. He was second in Division III in ERA (0.60) in 1999, and had 97 strikeouts and only eight walks. Olean broke both the UST modern strikeout records for career (246 in 248 innings) and season (97). His 24-8 career record at St. Thomas included a 15-1 mark in MIAC games.
Olean finished his 2000 season with the Snappers with a 6-1 record, with five saves and a 3.50 ERA. But he decided to leave pro baseball and return to the Twin Cities. He later pitched one season with the St. Paul Saints and worked the next nine seasons as St. Thomas' pitching coach, where he was part of both NCAA champion teams. He's also been a player-coach in local amateur baseball with the Miesville Mudhens. He was tapped as the interim UST head coach in January and has St. Thomas off to an 18-2 start (two one-run losses), plus a No. 1 Division III ranking.
Big dreams for ex-Tom
Former Tommie javelin thrower Dave Diercks, now a reserve officer in the U.S. Air Force, will spend the next two years training for a shot at the U.S. Olympic Trials. He's been selected as one of 10 Air Force elite competitors to take part in its World Class Athletics Program.
Diercks' best throw last year was 229-11 -- which ranked 23th among all American collegian and post-collegians in 2009.
A native of Faribault, Diercks ranks fourth on the Tommies' all-time javelin list with a collegiate best of 192-6 in 2005. He was MIAC runner-up as a junior in 2004, then took ninth at nationals and was conference champion as a senior in 2005.
Click here to see a recent story on his unique training site. The story by Mark Remme appeared in Diercks' hometown newspaper, the Faribault Daily News:
http://www.faribault.com/news.php?viewStory=98139
MIAC pride
The MIAC annually graduates several thousand men and women who go on to succeed in a variety of professional fields. There are not enough blogs to capture the many contributions and unique jobs held by the graduates of our 13 institutions.
In recent days alone, these conference alumni were in the spotlight:
--Bethel grad Jeff Nelson was the home-plate umpire for Monday's Target Field debut game won by the Twins over Boston.
--Carleton grad T.J. Stiles ('86) learned Monday that he won a Pulitzer Prize for Biography writing.
--Gustavus grad Kurt Elling ('89), a recent Grammy Award recipient as a jazz vocalist, will perform at this weekend's Monterey Jazz Fesitval.
--Macalester grad Kofi Annan ('61), the former Secretary General of the United Nations, celebrated his 72nd birthday last Thursday.
--Cobber grad Chris Coste, at age 37, continues his pro baseball career. The ex-Phillies catcher recently signed with the Washington Nationals and is starting the 2010 season at Class AAA Syracuse, where he could catch the 2009 No. 1 draft pick, Stephen Strasburg of San Diego State, sometime this season, if he's not recalled to the majors.
--St. Thomas grad Jake Mauer ('01) just finished his first weekend as head coach of the Minnesota Twins' Florida State League team, the Fort Myers Miracle.
Jake has bigger challenges -- his brother Joe's birthday is next Monday. What do you give a man who has everything?
Team Stats
Pitching:
W: Murrey (5-2)
L: M. Schuld (4-1)
Batting:
2B: Brown 1 ; Williams 1
RBI: Brown 2 ; English 1 ; Williams 1 ; Rubin 1
Base Running:
RUNS: Brown 1 ; Glasser 1 ; Williams 1 ; Salzman 1 ; Rubin 1
HBP: Williams 1 ; Salzman 1
Batting:
2B: M. McQuillan 1
3B: C. Bruchu 1
RBI: C. Bruchu 1 ; D. Cremisino 1
Base Running:
RUNS: J. Means 1 ; C. Bruchu 1
HBP: J. Means 1
