SUWANEE, Ga. - The final weekend of the regular season brought surprise and intrigue as the final spots in the SCAC Tournament were up for grabs. The Centre College Colonels became the first team to win a series from Birmingham-Southern College this season and earned the East's No. 3 seed. Meanwhile in the West, the Hendrix College Warriors took two of three from Southwestern University, to earn the West's No. 3 seed and advanced to the SCAC Tournament for the first time in 10 years.

The 2009 SCAC Tournament runs from Thursday, April 23 through Sunday, April 26 and is hosted by Millsaps College. All games will be played at Smith-Wills Stadium in Jackson, Miss. The winner of the six team double-elimination tournament will earn the SCAC's Automatic Qualifier into the NCAA Division III Baseball Championship field of 54 teams.

AROUND THE SCAC

Austin went 4-1 last week with two shutout wins over the University of Dallas on Wednesday and then took two of three against the University of the Ozarks over the weekend. In game one against Dallas, Will Chermak tossed 5.1 innings of three hit ball and Cory Stevens came on for the save in a 1-0 victory and then in game two Tyler Steed struck out eight batters while allowing just five hits to get a 2-0 win. Against the Ozarks, the ’Roos dropped the first game of the series 3-2 on Saturday. Jordan Robison and Sean Muder each went 2-for-3 with a double in the game. In the second game the ‘Roos rallied in the to force extras, and in the bottom of the eighth George Scheible singled home the game winner in a 9-8 victory. On Sunday Chermak struck out eight batters in 7.1 innings of work and the ‘Roos used four runs in the bottom of the eighth to build a 5-2 lead and managed to hold on for a 5-4 victory.

Birmingham-Southern (25-9, 10-5) finished the SCAC season with a three game set at Centre College over the weekend. The Panthers dropped the first two games of the set 8-5 and 11-10 before winning the final game 9-7. The Panthers used a steady stream of runs to stay ahead of the Colonels in game two, and corrected the defensive miscues that sank them in game one. BSC scored runs in the second, third, fourth, eighth, and ninth innings with 13 hits while committing just one error. Centre out hit the Panthers with 16, but they posted five errors on the board, three of which resulted directly in Panther runs. The win kept the Panthers in first atop the East Division standings. BSC is still ineligible for post-season play, so they will close out the season this week on the road for a four game set with Greensboro College.

Centre went 2-2 on the week falling to Mount St. Joseph 16-7 Wednesday before becoming the first SCAC team to win a series from first place Birmingham-Southern this season. The Colonels, fighting for a spot in this year's SCAC Tournament, won game one 8-5 and then rallied in the bottom of the ninth in game two to win 11-10. Centre also led 7-6 into the eighth inning of game three but were unable to finish the sweep. The Colonels finished the conference season with a 6-6 mark, which was good enough to qualify them for its third consecutive SCAC Tournament birth. It is only the second time in SCAC history, Centre has qualified for the tournament in three consecutive years. The Colonels, 9-21 overall and 6-6 in the league, will play Millsaps in its first tournament game.

DePauw wrapped up SCAC regular season play with its first conference series sweep. The Tigers won both ends of Saturday's doubleheader by scores of 6-0 and 10-7 and took game three by a 7-6 score. Brad Gerlach and David Morefield combined for the shutout in the series opener, while Hobs Donovan and Mike Peterson also picked up wins. For the weekend, the Tigers hit .366. Justin Weiner, the nation's leader in stolen bases, recorded a pair on Saturday to push his career total to 87 which tied the DePauw mark held by Jim Hebert (1986-87, 89) and is just one shy of the SCAC record of 88 held by Kenneth Sharp of Trinity. The Tigers also finished SCAC play tied with Birmingham-Southern for the best record in the East Division, marking the fifth time in their 11 years of SCAC play they've posted or shared the division's best mark.

Hendrix went 3-1 in arguably one of the most highly anticipated weeks in Warrior baseball history. Hendrix started the week on a high note with a 9-5 midweek win over Ozarks before traveling to Southwestern University for a do-or-die three game series over the weekend. The Warriors took the first two games of the series to mark their first postseason appearance since 1999. Hendrix sophomore LHP Jordan Suydam and senior RHP Wheeler Gnat combined for a one-two punch from the hill, while junior SS Matt Gaglio put the go-ahead run across in the seventh to help lift the Warriors to a crucial 3-1 victory over the Pirates in the series opener on Saturday night. Suydam fired 6.0 standout innings and allowed just five hits, one run (earned), one walk and two strike outs. Gnat picked up his third save of the season and allowed just one hit in 3.0 innings of work. Hendrix first year RHP Teddy Smoyer and senior DH Matt Giza came through in the clutch to help lift Hendrix and seal-the-deal with a 5-1 win in the opener.

No. 5 Millsaps went 2-2 in its first week ever ranked No. 1 by D3baseball.com, falling to NAIA-rival Belhaven College on Tuesday before winning 2 of 3 against Trinity University to wrap up the SCAC West’s No. 1 seed. The Blazers torched the Majors 11-3 to open the week, out-hitting the home team 16-6 and scoring six runs in the ninth to make matters worse. Millsaps rebounded with a lopsided 14-4 run-rule victory over Trinity three days later to win its 13th Division Title and then split a Saturday doubleheader to close out the regular season 32-6 which tied a regular season wins record. The Majors will play host to the 2009 SCAC Baseball Tournament and will open competition Thursday at 7 p.m. against No. 3 East seeded Centre College.

Oglethorpe’s season came to end this past weekend as the DePauw Tigers were able to complete a three game sweep of the Petrels. Oglethorpe came into the weekend needing to move past Centre in the conference standings to be eligible for postseason play but the Colonels managed to take two out of three from Birmingham-Southern to claim the final playoff spot. Despite the losses, the 2009 Diamond Petrels posted the school's most wins (19) since 2002 and the school's best winning percentage (.528) since 1997. With only two seniors on the roster, head coach Dan Giordano is optimistic about the team’s chances of climbing in the SCAC standings next spring.
Rhodes went 3-0 on the week with their first conference sweep of the year, defeating Sewanee 2-1, 6-5, and 22-5. Andy Holt picked up the victory in the first game, throwing his third complete game of the year, allowing 7 hits, no earned runs, 2 walks, and struck out 8. The Lynx offense was paced throughout the weekend by sophomores Brent Lindsey and Chris Conkell. Lindsey hit .636 (7-11) with 2 homeruns, a triple, 7 RBIs, 5 runs, walked once, and stole a base. Conkell hit .583 (7-12) with a homerun, 3 RBIs, 5 runs scored, walked once, and stole 4 bases. Rhodes is now 25-14 on the year and will take on Trinity in the first round of the conference tournament.

Sewanee dropped three to Rhodes this weekend in Memphis, losing its eighth and ninth one-run games this season. Sewanee wraps up the season at 8-22 and 2-12 in the league. The '09 season was highlighted by coach Scott Baker surpassing the career win mark of 106 set by legendary coach Shirley Majors. Taylor Barrett and Taylor Irwin led the Tigers from the plate, both batting over .400 for the year. Greg Bartleski, Logan Ray and Andrew Rowan each picked up two wins from the mound for the Tiger pitching staff.

Southwestern closed out its conference action this weekend with a home series against Hendrix College beginning on Saturday. The two teams were tied for the final spot in the SCAC Tournament going into the weekend. After a slight rescheduling of the games due to rain the Pirates and Warriors hit the field for game one Saturday night. Hendrix got on the board first in the third inning and SU tied it up in the fifth but the Warriors posted two more runs in the seventh to take game one 3-1. Sunday was much of the same in game one with Southwestern leaving seven runners on base in the contest and fell 5-1 to put Hendrix in the post season over the Pirates. In the final game SU got things rolling early and scored three runs in the first inning and kept going to take the 10-0 run rule victory. The Pirates will close out their 2009 season with a non-conference match-up against McMurry University on Tuesday. It will be the final game for eight senior Pirates.

Trinity finished off the regular season schedule with a trip to Millsaps over the weekend, facing off against the newly-crowned number one team in Division III. Earlier in the week, the Tigers wrapped up their home schedule with a win over Schreiner. The Tigers lost the opening game of the final SCAC series on Friday night, which secured the SCAC Tournament’s top seed for the Majors. Saturday, though, the Tigers came from behind to take an 8-4 win in the opening game of the doubleheader, then nearly stole the season series in the second game. After taking a 10-9 lead heading into the bottom of the eighth, Trinity gave up three runs of its own and missed out on another comeback win. Trinity will be the West Division’s second seed for this weekend’s SCAC Tournament in Jackson, Miss. The Tigers will face off against Rhodes College at 3:30 p.m. in the opening round of the tournament on Thursday afternoon. Trinity and Rhodes last met in 2007 at the SCAC Divisional Tournament. Rhodes won two out of three games to advance to the SCAC Championships that season. The Lynx took the opening game 15-4, then the Tigers enjoyed a 9-0 shutout win that forced a third game. Rhodes won 5-2 in the finale.

For the complete SCAC Diamond Weekly for Week 11, click here.