DII Report: The Squeeze — DII baseball's top 10, plus a live look
Wayne was out at Rome, GA, this week to see Shorter and North Greenville, plus your weekly jaunt around DII baseball.
Another weekend in the books and the Road to Cary is well underway.
Each week in The Squeeze, I’ll take you inside DII baseball with some of my thoughts from the weekend with a look at my latest Power 10 rankings and odds and ends. This week, I look at Chico State (again), some undefeated starts, and some thoughts from my weekend in Rome, GA at the Shorter/North Greenville series.
How the Power 10 fared
My preseason Power 10 rankings went up before the season at NCAA.com. Because of the staggered start, I don’t begin reranking until March. It is unfair to have teams that haven’t thrown a pitch drop in the rankings. The rankings below are still those preseason rankings, and yes, they will change. However, this is an exercise to keep you afloat of the top teams in DII.
No. 1 Tampa, 7-2. The Spartans dropped one game to Quincy sandwiched in between two dominant shutouts. Skyler Gonzalez continues to get stretched out, going a season-high six innings in Friday night’s shutout, and looks very much like his ace-like self allowing just three runs with 18 strikeouts in 17 innings. Next up: Lynn.
No. 2 Angelo State, 10-2. The Rams scored 66 runs in their four-game sweep, have won six in a row, and are now 10-2 on the season. Brett Smajstrla, a Sam Houston State transfer, caught my attention with two homers over the weekend and Jacob Guerrero continued his torrid start, now hitting in all 12 games he’s played and having scored two or more runs in seven of those games. The starting pitching thus far has been sick and the Rams appear to be in midseason form. Next up: Oklahoma Christian.
No. 3 Augustana (SD), 3-1. The Vikings series against Washburn was pushed to March 11-12 so they were off this weekend. Next up: St. Cloud State.
No. 4 North Greenville, 10-1. I got to watch this team up close and personal this weekend. The Trailblazers are good and pretty deep on both the mound and at the plate. They can score runs with the boom stick or just producing them and a 10-1 start averaging more than 12 runs per game is the exact start you need in the Southeast Region. Next up: Emory & Henry; UNC Pembroke.
No. 5 Central Missouri, 5-2. The Mules had a weekend off to regroup. Next up: Missouri Western.
No. 6 Catawba, 7-3. The Indians got back on track with a much-needed sweep over Anderson (SC). How about what Nathan Chrismon is doing? He’s on a five-game hitting streak, with eight hits, seven RBI, and five stolen bases. Austin Fine, Payne Stolsworth and Casey Gouge are as good a starting three as anyone in DII. All three have good command and hit the upper 80s with relative ease. Next up: Mount Olive; Limestone.
No. 7 Point Loma, 5-3. The Sea Lions “weekend” series concludes with a Monday doubleheader as this was being written, so not too much to report thus far. They did drop a game to Biola on Saturday, but baseball teams lose games. Ray Cebulski pitched a dandy on Friday, spinning seven innings of shutout ball while striking out eight and is the clear-cut ace of this staff. Next up: Vanguard.
No. 8 Southern New Hampshire. The Penmen head to Myrtle Beach this week and play a bunch of East Region opponents in a mini tournament.
No. 9 Colorado Mesa, 2-4. The Mavericks were the latest victims to the red-hot Chico State Wildcats, getting swept in three tightly contested games. For the most part, the pitching looked fine as this is a deep staff, the bats just aren’t doing the things we are accustomed to in Grand Junction… yet. Next up: Northwest Nazarene.
No. 10 West Chester. The Golden Rams have to wait until Feb. 22 to open against Charleston (WV) in what should be a great series.
Odds and ends
This is getting to be a broken record. Chico State has had just about a good start as they could have hoped for in 2025. The Wildcats took two of three from Power 10 Point Loma, two of three from GNAC favorite Northwest Nazarene, and then the sweep of Power 10 Colorado Mesa this week to sit at 7-2. That right there is the makings of a new Power 10 team come March. This coming week they play San Francisco State, who I think is a deep sleeper this year, so that equates to another huge test for Chico State.
So, who’s getting it done for the Wildcats? Troy Kent, a 2024 All-CCAA first teamer, is off to a torrid start, having hit and scored in each of his last six games while pacing the team with three home runs. He’s 17 games of breaking the Chico hitting streak record which he set last year. Thade Miller saw his season-opening eight-game hitting streak come to an end on Saturday, but he was scorching hot, recording two or more hits in six of his first eight. On the bump, Rocco Borrelli and Evan Tomlinson haven’t really had a bad start yet and lead a team pitching to a 2.95 ERA. Essentially, everyone is playing a role.
Graham Edwards, a 6-foot-4 righty who transfered into Young Harris from Liberty this year, had one of the best starts of the season to date. He hurled 6.2 innings of three-hit, shutout ball, striking out 16, tied with Kolby Dougan of Pittsburg State.
Speaking of the Gorillas, how about their 7-0 start? I had Degan Brewer listed as my MIAA newcomer of the year in October, and so far, he has looked the part. Brewer leads the Gorillas with a .476 batting average, seven doubles and 11 RBI, while Josh Holmes and Kadyn Williams are also off to torrid starts, each hitting over .400 with a pair of home runs. Dougan has been the best pitcher in DII. Unfortunately, a really good test against Maryville was washed out this weekend, but a tough test against Emporia State lies ahead.
Carson-Newman is 10-0. That includes a sweep of Charleston (WV) and a huge 18-2 win over a scrappy Shorter team. Head coach Tom Griffin told us that Kolton Casson was a freshman to watch this fall, and thus far, he has been correct. Casson is 3-0 in three starts, striking out 19 and walking just two in 16.1 innings. Senior closer Eli Norris has been lights out with three saves in three scoreless chances. The offense is clicking as well, hitting .357 with a combined 1.002 OPS, led by Tanner Kilgore who has 67% of the teams home runs.
How about Jessup? The Warriors have played seven games as a DII baseball program… and have won them all. Drew Andrews, a 5-foot-8, right-handed hitting outfielder, is off to a hot start. He’s hitting .346 with four home runs — including a three-home-run game — which is impressive, considerng he had 10 career home runs entering the season.
Live look: Shorter vs. North Greenville
I headed out to Rome, GA, over the weekend to catch some of Shorter’s first Conference Carolinas action. The Hawks, which were GSC stalwarts picked up their first CC win in program history, when they resumed play from the previous inning, walking it off in a quite untypical way.
If you’ve followed my DII Report for some time, you know I get out to Shorter quite a bit. I have always liked what Wes Timmons has built, especially with as little resources as he’s afforded. Shorter is always scrappy, and while they may be on the losing end of some lopsided battles, they always bring the fire.
You should keep your eyes on Tyler Zawacki. The Shorter outfielder transfered in from Calhoun Community College and has acclimated rather well to DII baseball. I saw him clobber a home run — his third of the young season — when the Hawks were trailing 5-0, but what I really like is that he has nice control of the zone. He simply doesn’t strikeout. He’s struck out just once in 33 at bats and struck out just 15 times in 162 at bats last year at the JUCO level.
Opposite the Hawks was the No. 4 North Greenville Trailblazers. This team, as always is a run-scoring machine. Head coach Landon Powell picked up his 400th career win on Friday in just over 10 seasons on Friday night and reached 401 by the time Saturday ended.
I was particulalry impressed with Game 3 starter Bennett Roemer. The 6-foot-2 righty transfered in from Newberry, so he has familiarity with the tricky Southeast Region. He had a strong debut with the Wolves in 2023 (9-0, 3.14 ERA, 76 strikeouts in 77.1 innings pitched) but suffered through an injury-riddled 2024. Saturday was his worst performance of 2025 and I still liked what I saw, which speaks volumes.
He works so fast, I’m not sure how any hitter gets comfortable against him. He certainly used it to his advantage. He was dominant through five innings, topping out at 91 but sitting high 80s. His delivery is not full of effort and relatively smooth, and because he works so quickly and fills the zone with strikes, he gets a lot of first-pitch outs. Even in the fifth, when he lost a tick off his velocity, he was bending his breaking ball, taking 10 mph or so off his pitch, which is not easy for hitters to adjust.
Shorter got him in the sixth, but it was his longest outing of the year by more than an inning. He could benefit from a little more movement on his pitches, but overall it was a stellar performance — 5.2 innings pitched, three earned runs, six strikeouts, and one walk.
Oh, and just because we all love home runs, here is Landon Shaw, North Greenville’s No. 9 hitter, ripping one about 390.