When you factor in all the cancellations, the season is a little more than halfway complete. Here is our first installment of the Power Rankings…
10) NYIT
To their credit, they have surpassed last season’s win total by the middle of April. On the flip side, they are still 8-15 with a 6.88 team ERA. Elias Martinez has been the bright spot on the mound, with a 2.73 ERA over 29 IP. At the plate, Louis Mele has been tremendous, with a .431 AVG through 73 AB with 22 RBI and 11 XBH.
9) Farmingdale
It has been a tough start for the 7-time defending Skyline Conference champs. They are 10-12 and 4-4 in conference play. I still expect them to get hot because of the presence of Mike Marino, Dalton McCarthy, Anthony Alvino and Tom Rydzewski in the lineup.They have four winnable games this weekend. By the way, Mike Marino is on fire, hitting .508 (33-for-65) with 20 R, 16 RBI and 15 stolen bases. The pitching has been led by Kevin Cashman, Ryan O’Connor and Kevin Martinez.
8) Hofstra
The Pride have won two in a row, but are 13-19 on the season. They’ve had a strange season because there has been some abnormally high scoring games that have simply bloated their ERAs. The team ERA is 7.05, and the leader is Adam Seibert at 3.91. It has hurt them that Nick Kozlowski and Adam Heidenfelder have not performed as expected, but Patrick Bryant and Bowie Matteson have looked good of late.
Offensively, they have been carried by freshman Steven Foster, who is hitting .377 with a ridiculous .472 OBP thanks to 18 walks. He also has 14 SBs. David Leiderman and Brad Witkowski have been on fire lately, with Leiderman having driven in 24 runs on the season. They are hitting .271 as a team, but the opposition is hitting .306.
7) Adelphi
The Panthers are 12-13 overall , but have been much better of late and they have won back-to-back. Offensively, they have been poor but the presence of Rob Vani, Vincent Sharkey and Nick Zito make the middle-of-the order formidable. Vani is leading the team with a .347 average and Zito has driven in 16 runs. If they can get Donato Signore and Eric Hassell going too, they will be tough in the playoffs.
The pitching has been led by Jonathon Mulford, who is 4-0. Lately, John Thompson has emerged as the No. 2 starter with the disappointing sophomore seasons of Mike Ceparano and TJ Santiago. The bullpen has been tremendous, however, led by Mike Cranston, Ricky Van Allen and Nick Batas–who are a combined 6-2 with five saves.
6) Old Westbury
The Panthers are 13-8 and can crush the ball. Against a mediocre pitcher they put up 15 runs without breaking a sweat–as evidenced by their .326 AVG. Nick Yip, Eddie Hernandez, Mike Cardino and Christian Faust are the mashers with Yip leading the way with a Babe Ruth-like .714 SLG %. Shortstop Tommy Zeigen has been a nice surprise at the plate, as he’s hitting .310 with two HR and 17 RBI. The concern for them is when they face an elite pitcher. Fortunately, they might not face one until the regionals.
The pitching is good enough. Tim Ingram is the unquestioned ace, he has four wins with a 1.75 ERA and 4:1 K:BB ratio. Tyler Kapela has a 3.03 ERA and less than a hit per inning, but nearly five walks per nine innings. What they have going for them is depth, they have about 10 arms that can get outs and freshman closer Vinny Bieniek is fearless.
5) St. Joseph’s
The Golden Eagles have matured nicely in Richard Garrett’s second year. They are 13-11 and 8-0 in conference play. They are hitting .309 as a team, with Nick Girardi leading the way at a robust .455. Anthony Bonilla, Brendan Sullivan, Joe Calabrese and Anthony Andreani all are having great seasons, with the lowest of that bunch batting .338.
Josh Outsen has been tremendous in 35 IP with a 1.67 ERA, but he has only nine more strikeouts than walks which leads me to believe a regression is in store. Ryan Aloise has been superb also, with three wins and a 3.73 ERA. The bullpen has been anchored by Matt Mills, who has a 0.63 ERA in 14 innings. The only concern is that they are top-heavy and do not have the depth that Old Westbury has.
4) Molloy
They are 16-15 on the season, but 4-8 in ECC play. It was a roll of the dice between them and LIU, but they lost three of four to them last month.
Offensively, they are pretty scary. They have a team AVG of .290 with six regulars at .287 or above. John Galanoudis has been sensational–he has 43 hits already and 22 RBI. Angelo Navetto has also been terrific, he’s batting .340 on the year.
The team ERA is 4.60. Shea Spitzbarth and Alex Brosnan have been lights out, which makes them dangerous in two-game spurts but beyond that the pitching has been shaky. Spitzbarth has 53 K’s in 39 innings. They need the arms beyond them to step up
3) LIU Post
They are 12-10, but are trending up–they just beat Dowling three of four games. The offense has been led by senior Vinny Iacono, who is hitting .360 with a .520 SLG %. Despite him being the only .300 hitter, they have some punch. Kyle Fagan, Anthony Brunetti, David Groeneveld, Tom Asbaty and Lou Doria can all hit the ball out of the yard. Doria, who only has 27 at bats, actually is leading the team in slugging at .545. They have 180 strikeouts against only 80 walks, which is a concern.
The team ERA is high at 4.15, but when Jake DeCarli pitches, the team is unbeatable. He has a 1.05 ERA in 43 innings, which actually went up from last year’s 1.03. Connor McCarthy and Dan Jagiello are nice complements to him and Dillon Burke is dominant at the back end. They will need another bullpen arm to emerge.
2) Dowling
They are 18-8 and 7-5 in conference play. They are very balanced–the offense has been led by Dan Parisi and now others are coming on strong. Tyler Piccolo, Rob Costanzo, Adam Schuster and Jon Cruz have been hot recently. The team AVG is .274 with a solid .364 OBP.
The pitching has been superb. As they hoped, Cody McPartland and Brendan Butler have formed a formidable 1-2 punch. They have combined for six wins and more than one strikeout per inning over 60 frames. The biggest difference is that the bullpen has been strong, led by Nick Persad, Andrew Sesto and Dennis Buckstein.
1) Stony Brook
The Sea Wolves always seems to stumble out of the gate before hitting their stride. They are now 17-11 and 9-2 in the America East. They are young, and only hitting .245 as a team but Jack Parenty has led the charge with a .369 AVG and 24 RBI. I think they play smallball well enough to win close games, and they have bats like Robert Chavarria, Toby Handley, Andruw Gazzola and Cole Peragine to win.
Pitching wise, they have their ace in Tyler Honahan with a strong No. 2 in Daniel Zamora. Both can shut down any team. The trio of Teddy Rotliff, Cameron Stone and Nick Brass have been great in the ‘pen but they will need to weather the storm since Kevin Kernan is now injured.
