This weekend featured some high-drama with some conference rivals i.e. Old Westbury-St. Joseph’s, Farmingdale-St. Joseph’s, NYIT-Molloy, LIU Post-Southern Connecticut and Stony Brook-Albany. While this was all exciting finishes, it makes the playoff pictures extremely murky as well as our Power Rankings; ESPECIALLY at the Division-III level, as my preseason predictions don’t look great right now, however, it doesn’t mean things can’t be completely different in one week. I will do a podcast tomorrow explaining this in depth more.
We covered high school during the week, then we got back into the college action this weekend. Staying consistent with our format the previous two weeks, I will segment the rankings by division. Here’s my best guess.
Division-I:
- St. John’s (Record: 22-10, Stock UP)
2. Fordham (Record: 21-11-1, Stock EVEN)
3. Stony Brook (Record: 19-15, Stock EVEN)
4. Hofstra (Record: 14-14, Stock DOWN)
Analysis: It was a huge weekend for the Red Storm as they re-claim our top spot after a convincing sweep over Big East rival Creighton. They have now won eight-consecutive and we’ll get a chance to see them this Wednesday at Hofstra in what should be a bullpen day for each team. Their team AVG of .294 is terrific and their 2.60 team ERA is top-5 in the nation. Fordham went 3-2 this weekend with a 2 of 3 series win from Atlantic-10 rival La Salle. They put together a seven-run first inning in the third game of the series with co-ace Reiss Knehr smacking a grand slam and driving in six runs. Stony Brook had a disappointing weekend as they were swept by America East rival Albany. Two of the losses came in heartbreaking, 1-run fashion and the other was a blowout in which Bret Clarke has an uncharacteristically poor outing. They are still right there in the mix but they will need a bounce back next weekend against UMBC.
Division-II:
1.LIU Post (Record: 22-10, Stock UP)
2. Molloy (Record: 23-14, Stock UP)
3. Adelphi (Record: 16-13-1, Stock UP)
4. Pace (Record: 14-11-1, Stock EVEN)
5. Queens (Record: 10-20, Stock DOWN)
6. NYIT (Record: 6-19-1, Stock EVEN)
Analysis: Adelphi had won eight games in a row and was red-hot leading up to yesterday’s double header against AIC. They not only had the winning streak ended, but they lost the series–with one coming in the ninth inning–and it is crucial with only three weeks remaining. Molloy and LIU Post are in the midst of hot streaks. The Lions played an emotionally-charged series with their neighbors at NYIT and defeated them in 14 innings on Sunday on a walk-off single by Joseph Nastasi. It took an outstanding effort by NYIT’s Alex Passarella to end their seven-game winning streak yesterday but they bounced back and won the series and are now 15-1 in ECC play. Big match up against St. Thomas Aquinas next week. This will be a huge test as the Spartans can match up with their high-powered offense. LIU Post swept Southern Connecticut by a total of 4 runs. James Varela fired his sixth consecutive complete game in the opener. Dave Brehm recorded the walk-off infield single in middle game and they trailed 5-3 in the bottom of the sixth inning and came back thanks to two errors by the Owls. They are firing on all cylinders, their offensive depth and stable of arms is a formula for success. They will face the surprising squad from Mercy College next weekend, who currently occupies the No. 4 seed in the ECC.
Division-III
- USMMA (Record: 23-7, Stock EVEN)
2. SUNY Maritime (Record: 19-9, Stock UP)
3. Farmingdale State (Record: 17-9, Stock UP)
4. SUNY Old Westbury (Record: 12-12-1, Stock UP)
5. St. Joseph’s (Record: 12-13, Stock DOWN)
Analysis: My head is in a pretzel after this weekend. How do you make sense of the recent transgressions in which my preseason pick to win it all (St. Joseph’s) lost all four games in a nightmarish weekend? If you freeze frame to the third inning in game 1 of Saturday’s game against Old Westbury with Joseph Murphy on the mound, it appeared they were in line for a relatively easy victory but the Panthers would have none of it. The big blow came on a bases-clearing triply by John Fogarty and then the runs came pouring in off a bevy of Golden Eagles’ relievers. Jesse Russo and John Condon combined to go 9-for-10 and were just overall menaces. Reliever Matt Bohenek came in and fired 5.1 innings of relief throwing submarine, which might be a first. They also came back and won Game 2 after being down big early. They looked to be in big trouble when ace Adam Heidenfelder went down with an arm injury and now they have life. Today, Farmingdale’s pitching staff fired 16 shutout innings in terrible playing conditions in Farmingdale. David Otero and Matt Constantine were lights-out and it was shocking to see how thoroughly they dominated a high-powered offense. St. Joseph’s is left searching for answers right now. The low-point coming when they allowed the Rams to score a run on a strikeout with a runner on second base when the dropped third-strike was bounced to first base. The bright-spot was some great pitching from Nick Clemente and Anthony Papa for much of the day. For Farmingdale, it really speaks volumes about their leadership in the dugout considering they lost Cameron Alfano and Nick Attardi to injuries prior to the season and they are 17-9 and 9-3 in conference play. Vinny Rice is playing on one leg with a hamstring injury that hampered him for the early part of the trip and he had an inspirational performance today, hitting the go-ahead home run in Game 2 and smacking an huge RBI single and RBI double in Game 1. He was the best player on the field today. They have also been lifted by the great relief pitching of Logan Hicks, who is a side-winder that can bail their starting pitcher’s out of dicey situations. They will have a huge opportunity next weekend against both Maritime and Merchant Marines. I haven’t seen Maritime since the season’s opening weekend at Baseball Heaven and I haven’t seen USSMA at all. I am looking forward to it.
