-Blade Vaquero Baseball Beat

Let's be honest here.

It's just instinctive to think to yourself "Oh it's just another DII today."

As fans anyway.

It's natural to think that because you just need to look at the conference standings.

But no coach in DI will ever be heard saying that, only us fans from the outside say that. 

In the ACCAC, the seven DI programs sit atop the ACCAC standings with the remaining seven DII's all trailing and really, there's no other viable way at this point to do it. Combining the DI's and DII's is the best way to provide enough teams so that everyone gets a variety of baseball games on it's menu.

But Central Arizona College won every game against the DII's going 17-0, a very difficult task, because baseball is baseball, you really never know which team will show up on any given day supposedly.

But 17-0.

The Vaqueros stuck it to Glendale again on Wednesday at their place with a final of 10-3, scoring 19 runs in it's home-and-away this week, with starter Tommy Brandenburg winning his fifth game and Central took their ten hits and twelve walks for their 26th straight win to scoot on up to 37-5 overall, and 24-2 in the conference, giving them a four game lead. 

"Here come the heavy hitters" we all say.

The head coach says "they're ALL heavy hitters."

He didn't actually say that, but that's how the staff treats each game. He doesn't have to say it.

That's right fans, here we go with the DI's all facing each other for the final seven series of the 2023 season. 

As former athletic director Chuck Schnoor always said, the hardest thing about the Central Arizona College baseball season, was getting out of their own conference. Nobody disagrees with that.

The upcoming weekend series' with Pima and Cochise on Tuesday are at home at McSwain Field and you just feel the adrenalin going up. 

It feels like Central is still mixing up the batting order each game because you go with the flow and I guess it's best to have everyone settled in to a position so they can get comfortable, but we've seen none of that this year at the plate, and with a 26 game winning streak, IS settling in with a consistent batting order really best?

It's exciting to see how Tug and Patrick, and Theo and Tommy and this set of relievers do in the upcoming months, because you know they are rocking and rolling in their guts, and you can bet the coaching staff is too. 

You can count on this, there's no relaxing here on out.