It was a fascinating weekend in many ways. First-and-foremost, there was actual baseball played on Long Island for the first time this season and that will never get old. That first live action at Baseball Heaven just lets you know you’re alive and for a few minutes, all is well in the world.
Secondly, it was fascinating because Frank Catalanotto‘s team has come out of the gates firing and off to an incredible 4-0 start. LIU Post, who started off with the dreaded 0-4 have made a furious run and won their last four games. On the downside, it’s been the Division-I teams that have been lethargic and none of them are currently over .500.
In Week 2’s Power Rankings, we stick to Division-I and II as Old Westbury (0-2) and SUNY Maritime (3-1) are the only teams to have opened up. We will add Division-III to the mix next week. Additionally, if you’d like to see Week 1’s Power Rankings, you can click here.
Division-I:
- Stony Brook (Record 3-3)
It was a step backwards for the Sea Wolves after an impressive Opening Weekend in Miami, as they lost two of three to Southeastern Louisiana. Today they got shutout and compiled only four hits, but we will accentuate on the positive. In Saturday’s game, they won, 7-4, with Brian Herrmann recording his first win of the season. The big knock, once again, was junior Mike Wilson‘s grand slam to turn a 3-2 deficit into a 6-3 lead. Wilson already has three long balls, nearly matching last season’s total of four. They will look to get back to their winning ways next weekend against No. 13 ranked Arkansas before coming back home.
2. St. John’s (Record: 1-4)
It was a bizarre weekend for the Red Storm, as they had first two games rained out which forced them to play a double header today with the first game being seven innings. They won the first one, 5-2, behind ace Sean Mooney. That comes as no surprise as he has simply been unhittable since the day he stepped on a college mound. Joe Lasorsa recorded the save. Mitchell Henshaw drove in two runs. They will head back to Cali next weekend for a weeklong trip beginning with a three-game set in San Diego. I think it’s fair to say they will get their ‘A’ game together soon considering their track record of recent success.
3. Fordham (Record: 2-5)
The Rams have to be thrilled with coming away with a series split against North Florida considering they lost a heart-breaker in 12 innings on Friday night. They bounced back the next afternoon with an 8-5 win thanks to a great relief outing by Anthony Zimmerman to hold the fort while the offense went to work. Matt Tarabek had the go-ahead hit and 3 hits on the afternoon. Jake Baker has been swinging a red-hot bat, he’s off to a .444 start (8-for-18) to start the season.
4. Hofstra (Record: 1-3)
The Pride had off this week, they will be back in action on Friday down in Florida against the University of Pittsburgh. It will be interesting to see what kind of impact Kellenberg grad Chris Cappas has in that game. They will play four games on the weekend, as Coach Russo stated in an interview with the Len Skoros, the team’s inexperience on the mound makes it difficult for them to navigate through a four-game series but fortunately there are not many cases of that once the conference schedule gets going.
Division-II:
- NYIT (Record: 4-0)
Wow, where to start? In their storied history, they have never started a season 4-0. That came as a surprise to me considering their epic run of success in the 1980s under Coach Bob Hirschfield. It’s safe to say Frank Catalanotto was the perfect Head Coach for the position. The highlight of the weekend was the combined no-hitter on Saturday by Moises Robles and Dean Fazah. Right behind that was their thrashing of Stonehill on Sunday morning, 23-11, behind five long balls (Jake Lebel, Kieran Dowd, E.J. Cumbo and John LaRocca). Every new player has contributed, including former Blue Jays farmhand Andrew Florides who smacked a HR in his debut and Joe Keller, who came on in relief in Friday’s game to throw 4.2 innings in his college debut. They are hitting .370 as a team, and Matt Malone has 9 hits with a .938 SLG. They will have their home opener on Friday against Franklin Pierce, who they no-hit on Saturday.
2. LIU Post (Record: 4-4)
Four straight wins against Felician, Stonehill, Concordia and Le Moyne after beginning 0-4 is immensely important. Mike Andreoli recorded his first collegiate win on Saturday, with three innings of relief of Mike Stiles. Mike Manzione had the go-ahead home run in the eighth that might’ve given the team the spark they needed. In the next win, Noah Lorenzo bounced back with a vintage performance (7 IP, 1 ER, 2 K, 0 BB) which is critical if they are to make noise this season. Mike Lazos closed it out with two innings. Jahsiah Greene‘s two-run hit was the difference in the game. In the third game, Zach Fritz was the hero as he drove in Dave Brehm for the winning run. Brian Kavanagh played the role of fireman, firing four shutout innings out of the pen in relief of Julian Arcos to record his first win of the season. In the fourth and final victory, they put on an offensive clinic. They scored 14 runs on 18 hits; including four each by Reynaldo Guillen, Chris Wasson and Dave Brehm. Jahsiah Greene added three hits of his own. Antonio Deodato fired a shutout inning of relief in his first college outing and his first since Tommy John Surgery in 2017. They will open up at home on Thursday against New Haven, we will have the coverage.
3. Adelphi (Record : 0-0)
They will open up this Saturday against St. Thomas Aquinas. I believe eventually they will top this list several weeks through out the season as their offense is the best that it’s been since I began paying attention in 2011. Additionally, their staff is every bit as strong as it was last year. I expect them to be in the East Regionals this season.
4. Queens (Record: 2-0-1)
A wild weekend for the Knights, as they tied 7-7 in 10 innings on Friday night, then beat Nyack, 8-4 and 13-11, on Saturday. In their first win, West Islip grad Lou Antos went 4-for-4, Pat-Med grad Eric Roubal had three hits and Sachem North grad Dennis Buckstein recorded the victory with 5 strong innings. In their 13-11 win, they nearly watched their 10-2 lead vanish into thin air after the 5th inning but were able to hang on. Six players recorded multi-hit games, St. John the Baptist grad Bryan Krolikowski recorded the win. They will have this week before heading to Florida for eight games.
5. Molloy (Record: 0-4)
Four consecutive games allowing 10+ runs to start the season is not ideal. I will say this–in 2010 I was on a Farmingdale State team that opened the season in basically the same fashion (0-4 weekend down south) and we still wound up winning the Conference, so it is far from a death sentence. They will be home this weekend against Dominican as they look to right the ship.
On the brightside, the offense has been really good. Leading the charge has been freshman Chris Peralta (6-for-13), senior Nick Marino (7-for-16) and junior Sean Hogan (7-for-17).
