by Vinny Messana
It was a pretty wild week in college baseball. Last week’s number No. 4 team had their season end prematurely. The No. 3 team was swept, the No. 2 team lost three of four and the No.1 team was idle. There will be some shake up.
1.St. Joseph’s
Record: 23-10, Stock UP
They have won nine games in a row and they are peaking at the right time. Today they easily took care of their Brooklyn brethren, 12-1. Ryan Aloise was lights out for six innings. The pitching has shouldered the load for the most part. Brandon Lubrano was lights out in Game One against Mount St. Mary’s and Steven Szobesky was good enough in Game Two. Now they are in unprecedented territory with the chance to defeat Farmingdale State on Tuesday in the Skyline Conference championship. They beat them on Saturday in 12 innings, so it will certainly be a close game but they will need to execute. Fortunately, they have a lineup of seniors and a freshman catcher (Dan Campanelli) who has done nothing but win since he got to Bayport-Blue Point HS. They are balanced, but they will need to take care of business in the first game because those away dugouts in Farmingdale have a way of messing with opponents.
2. Suffolk
Record: 22-6, Stock EVEN
They dropped down a spot to no fault of their own. They didn’t play this weekend, they will play a DH on Wednesday and Saturday as they look to keep rolling entering the conference playoffs. How about their trifecta of Nicholas VonOhlen, Angel Rodriguez and Joseph DeLand? VonOhlen has seven HRs and 33 RBI with a .469 AVG, Rodriguez is batting .467 with a .556 OBP and DeLand is hitting .439.
3. Molloy
Record: 30-19, Stock EVEN
They lost three of four this weekend to St. Thomas Aquinas, but they clinched a playoff spot at least. Ron Bauer was tagged with his first loss of the season on Friday despite throwing a CG. They won in 10 innings the next day when Lucas Burton threw two shutout innings in relief and Kevin Podell had the game-winning hit. They are still in great shape with an offense that has six regulars hitting over .310. It will be a wild weekend for sure in the ECC playoffs.
4. Adelphi
Record: 25-21, Stock UP
They finished off their regular season with three wins and clinched a tie of first place in the southwest division and they will host the College of St. Rose on Tuesday. They have been led offensively by a surge by Rob Vani, Alex Zykoff and Eric Hassell. They will be leaning on them to provide offense in what will be a very competitive conference tournament. They are very deep pitching wise, and will be leaning on T.J. Santiago, Jonathon Mulford and Matthew O’Connor to provide strong starting pitching as they search for their first NE-10 title since 2011.
5. Stony Brook
Record: 20-23, Stock DOWN
It was a tough weekend as they were swept by first-place Binghamton. They are now in third place with two weekend series remaining against Maine and Albany. They will be counting on their big bats (Andruw Gazzola, David Real, Jack Parenty, Casey Baker, Toby Handley) to provide the punch.
6. LIU Post
Record: 23-20, Stock UP
They have been on fire and just came off a four-game sweep of Mercy. They need a loss by Bridgeport to clinch a spot in the ECC postseason. They got huge pitching performances from Jake DeCarli, Dan Jagiello and Joey Arena this weekend. If they get in, they have a chance to win just because of those arms. But, they have the offense now that David Groeneveld has turned into one of the biggest impact hitters on the island and is now leading the conference in RBIs with 38. He and Rob Andreoli have been spectacular all season long and now Dave Brehm is showing why he was one of the top high school hitters last year.
7. Farmingdale State
Record: 20-15, Stock EVEN
They fought back with two victories and will now battle it out against St. Joseph’s needing two wins to regain the title that they had for seven consecutive seasons. They don’t have the experience that St. Joseph’s has but they will have all hands on deck with their pitching and they know how to play small ball so clearly it’s anyone’s game. Christopher Reilly has done a good job of filling in for Dalton McCarthy and, of course, with their collection of Nick Attardi, Brandon Snow, Anthony Gigante and Josh Shapiro they can score any time they get the leadoff man on. Kenneth Johntry has emerged as a clutch hitter as well, as his two-run single was a huge moment in the game against St. Joseph’s-LI.
8. Dowling
Record: 24-22, Stock UP
They won three of four this weekend and they have two things really working in their favor–1) the pitching has been spectacular, led by Chris Cepeda, Cody McPartland and Jon Parisi. We knew McPartland was an ace and that Cepeda could be an ace down the line but he has turned into an ace overnight (he’s now 6-0, 2.83 ERA over 60 IP). 2) R.J. Going, Tyler Piccolo and Michael Rizzitello have been carrying the offense and riding incredible hot streaks.
9. Old Westbury
Record: 26-15, Stock DOWN
It was a bitter end to an otherwise very successful 2016 campaign for the Old Westbury Panthers. They could still receive an at-large bid to the NCAA regionals but if they do not, there’s a lot of what-ifs. Despite having two pitchers worthy of All-Long Island consideration and an offense filled with high-averages, they were two-and-out in the playoffs. Hitting .336 as a team is not easy and teams like that generally make the College World Series unless the pitching is a weakness-which it was not. In fact, much credit should be given to Coach Rod Stephan who completely revamped the pitching staff after losing Tim Ingram and Caleb Olsen and got five quality transfers. They will have lots of players returning next year but will need to replace the arms of Jeremy Charles and Vinny Caputo.
10. Nassau
Record: 23-15, Stock UP
They swept Bronx CC the other day and split with Queensborough today. They will play the regionals this weekend. They are talented enough to cruise through the conference until their showdown with Suffolk. They lost three of four when they played, it will certainly be a fascinating match up as they will undoubtedly be hungry. Their freshman, Hasan Deljanin, has emerged as a true weapon and he has the big game experience from Clarke HS that could slow down Suffolk’s offensive attack.
11. Hofstra
Record: 14-32, Stock EVEN
They lost two of three this weekend to Northeastern, winning thanks to a two HR game from Mat Annunziata. He has been one of the many bright spots on offense this season. His nine HRs is tied for the team-lead with sophomore Teddy Cillis and his 39 RBIs leads the team. They have five games remaining. Fortunately, they have much of their core in tact for next season and they will have some of the best high school talent coming in this fall and they also have one of the top 2017 prospects committed in Jimmy Joyce and one of the top 2018 prospects committed in Anthony D’Onofrio–I saw both play this week for the first time and they are very impressive.
12. NYIT
Record: 17-26, Stock DOWN
A little over a week ago, they had a chance to finish with a .500 record which would’ve been a huge milestone for the program. Unfortunately, they slipped to the finish line with eight consecutive losses.They did have some terrific individual performances highlighted by the Joe Daru Show, Louis Mele’s five HRs as well as stellar pitching seasons from David Plotkin and Dixon Marble. They have a strong recruiting class coming in so they have a bright future.
