Ryan Thorsen and Chris Senn Earn Illinois NACC Baseball Players of the Week Honors

Illinois Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference baseball players of the week

honors go to Rockford College infielder Chris Senn and Concordia University Chicago pitcher Ryan Thorsen for the week ending March 16th.

Concordia senior Ryan Thorsen, Lake Villa, Illinois, earned pitcher of the week honors throwing eight scoreless innings against Rose-Hulman last week.  Thorsen struck out nine and gave up five hits over eight innings.

Rockford's Chris Senn, Victorville, CA, earned player of the week honors by hitting .471 with five doubles, a homer and 10 rbi's last week. 

Northern Athletics Conference 2013 Baseball Preview

Aurora University baseball is picked to finish 1st in the 2013 preseason coaches poll in the Northern Athletic Conference.  The Spartans won last years NAC conference title and the last three Northern Athletic Conference tournaments.

Returning for Aurora is D3Baseball.com's preseason All-American pitcher Drew Gay who went 8-0 with a 1.68 ERA last season.  Aurora also returns pitchers Eric Palmer 8-0, 2.54 ERA, Brad Warnecke 8-0, 1.19 ERA, DH Cory Walden .352  , 57 RBI's, and catcher Ryan McMahon, .322, 17 RBI's.

Concordia, IL returns All-American third baseman Anthony Even who hit .400 with 38 RBI's and 22 doubles last season.

Benedictine has NAC Freshman All-Star Tim Hendricks coming back.  Tim hit .269 with 23 RBI's and scored 20 runs last season for the Eagles.

Rockford's top returning pitcher is Kaleb Rich, who went 3-4 with a 4.82 ERA last year.

Dominican University only returns 10 letter winners from their 2012 squad right fielder Adam Quinn leads the way hitting .267 with 22 rbi's last season.

Nicolson and Ortiz earn Northern Athletics Conference Baseball Players of the Week

Jake Nicolson and Uli Ortiz were named the Northern Athletics Conference Baseball Players of the Week for the week ending April 29th.


Rockford College's Nicolson earned Pitching Baseball Student-Athlete of the Week by throwing a complete game shutout against Edgewood last week.  Jake struck out seven and walked one in a 4-0 win.  Nicolson is from Stillman Valley, Illinois.


Benedictine's Uli Ortiz received the NAC Position Player of the Week award for hitting .529 last week.  Uli had 9 hit's, one for extra bases, walked four times and drove in two runs.  Ortiz is from Chicago, Illinois.

Rockford Baseball's Daryn Streed Named to D3baseball.com Team of the Week

Rockford junior infielder/pitcher Daryn Streed was selected as the DH for the D3baseball.com team of the week.

Streed earned the spot by hitting .588 with six rbi's, .765 slugging percentage, .611 on base percentage and scored five times.  Against Elmhurst College last week Daryn went 5-5 with a homer.

Dercks and Palmer Earn Northern Athletics Conference Baseball Players of the Week

Jimmy Dercks and Eric Palmer were named the Northern Athletics Conference baseball players of the week for the week ending April 15th.

Aurora University freshman Eric Palmer captured the Pitcher of the Week honors went 2-0 last week with a 0.60 ERA in 15 innings last week.  Palmer struck out 12 and allowed only one earned run last week and improved his record to 4-0 this season.  Eric attended East Leyden and lives in Melrose Park Illinois.

Senior shortstop Jimmy Dercks from Rockford College earned the Hitter of the Week by batting .586 with 17 hits last week.  Dercks had eight doubles, a homer and 13 rbi's on the week.  Jimmy also earned the D3Baseball.com Team of the Week earning a spot as the shortstop.  Dercks is from Kaukauna Wisconsin.

Aurora University Baseball Picked to Win the NAC for 2012

Aurora University baseball is picked to win the 2012 Northern Athletics Conference by D3Baseball.com.

Returning for Aurora are two D3Baseball.com Third Team All-Americans, senior outfielder Josh Davidson and DH Mike Foley.  Also returning for the Spartans is NAC Co-Pitcher of the Year Drew Gay.

Concordia Illinois looks to be as good as Aurora in 2012 with the NAC Position Player of the Year catcher Nick Skala.  Skala was drafted in the 37th round by the Orioles but returned to school.  Also returning are All-American outfielder Cam Stevens and outfielder Dan Eichholzer.

Illinois Benedictine returns seven position players and five pitchers for 2012.  Head baseball coach John Ostrowski is looking for his 900th win this season.  Coach Ostrowski begins his 39th season at Benedictine.

Rockford returns two All-Conference players with infielder Jimmy Dercks and outfielder/infielder Ryne Billesbach.

Aurora University Baseball Picked as 2011 Favorite in the NAC

The Aurora University Baseball team received 7 of 11 first place votes as the 2011 preseason favorite in the Northern Athletics Conference.

Aurora returns three all-conference honorable mention players from last season, finished second in conference (16-6 in the NAC, 27-16 overall), won the conference tournament and advanced to the D3 Championship Tournament last season.

Rockford, last season's NAC co-champion, was picked to finish second in the 2011 preseason poll.

2011 NAC Coaches Preseason Poll:

1. Aurora University
2. Rockford College
3. Edgewood
4. Concordia Chicago & Concordia Wisconsin
6. Benedictine
7. Lakeland
8. Marian
9. Dominician
10. MSOE & Wisconsin Lutheran
12. Maranatha

Northern Athletics Conference 2010 Baseball Tournament

The 2010 Northern Athletics Conference Tournament will be held at Road Ranger Stadium, home of the Rockford RiverHawks, May 14th through May 16th 2010.  Below is the current schedule...

May 14th
Game 1  9:00 am - #1 seed Edgewood College vs #4 Aurora University
Game 2  12:30 pm - #2 Rockford College vs #3 Concordia Wisconsin
Game 3  4:00 pm - Winner game 1 vs Winner game 2
Game 4  7:30 pm - Loser game 1 vs Loser game 2

May 15
Game 5  12:00 pm  - Loser game 3 vs Winner game 4
Game 6  3:30 pm - Winner game 3 vs Winner game 5

May 16
Game 7 (if necessary) 10:00 am - Rematch of Game 6

Rockford Baseball Picked to Win 2010 Northern Athletics Conference

Baseball in Illinois News

Based on the pre-season coaches poll the Rockford Regents Baseball team has been picked to win the Northern Athletics Conference for 2010.  Rockford received 131 overall votes with Aurora University and Concordia University Chicago finishing with 124 total votes.

The 2010 Northern Athletics Conference baseball tournament will be held at Road Ranger Stadium in Rockford Illinois and will include the top four teams in the conference.

2010 Northern Athletics Conference Preview

From Baseball in Illinois News
courtesy of D3baseball

Concordia (Ill.) was the automatic qualifier in the Northern AC, the conference's first Pool A bid after going through the NCAA waiting process. The Cougars (33-15, 18-4 Northern AC in 2009) went 0-2 against Wooster and Heidelberg, both top-10 teams heading into regionals. If there's to be a repeat, Concordia (Ill.) will have to do it without shortstop Jack Walker, who's now in the Nationals organization, and Phil Seris. Those two combined for 30 home runs, 96 runs batted in and 231 total bases in 2009.


The wheels have left Rockford, but the Regents will be just fine. Rockford (27-14, 17-5) loses outfielder Shaun Dascher and first baseman Chris Brockman (who stole a combined 47 bases) and two other starters, but this is a team that outscored its opponents 400-262 last season while scoring 9.8 runs per game. The pitching staff loses just one starter and a top reliever while welcoming three transfers, so the Regents, always a league contender, could be the favorites this year.

Aurora looks to make the next step after losing in the conference tournament final last year. The Spartans (29-13, 16-6) return one of the best pitchers in the region, D3baseball.com preseason All-American Steve Salazar (5-4, 2.12 ERA, three shutouts). If the Spartans, World Series participants in 2004 and 2006, develop someone after Salazar and Dan McCarthy (8-1, 3.81 ERA), they could take that next step. Aurora lost some quality arms behind the ace, but last year the Spartans had an ERA more than a full run better than the next Northern AC team. Senior outfielder Tony Wellner (.411 AVG., 11 HR, .756 SLG %) is back to anchor the lineup, which loses five starters who combined to bat .337 and accounted for 198 of the team's 356 RBI's.

Concordia (Wis.) is led by 2009 Northern AC Player of the Year and D3baseball.com preseason All-American outfielder Jon Olla (led nation with a .602 OBP). However, the Falcons (22-17, 14-8) must pitch better to contend. Last year the team had a 7.84 ERA and allowed opponents to bat .344. Then again Concordia (Wis.) swept UW-Whitewater to end last season, so the talent is there to beat the region's elite.