Weather once again caused some havoc on the schedules this week; aside from the teams that were able to escape down south. Fortunately, we were able to cover a few games finally and they happened to be pretty great match ups.
The only local team yet to play a game is St. Joseph’s, who will open on Tuesday against Lehman so we will omit them from the list because I don’t have a read on them yet.
Without further ado, here’s my best guess with how the local Division-I, Division-II and Division-III teams stack up. Here’s last week’s edition if you’d like to compare.
Division-I:
- Fordham (Record: 9-6)
They are red-hot right now, and if you take away their opening weekend against a national powerhouse in Texas A & M, they would be 9-3. In any event, they are rounding into form at just the right time with the Atlantic-10 schedule coming up in just over a week. Their pitching has been outstanding during their six-game winning streak. They have seven pitchers with ERAS under 3.38, and John Stankiewicz (3-0) has been downright filthy with an ERA of 1.33 and 25 strikeouts. Their three best hitters right now are all named Jake (Baker, MacKenzie, Guercio), with Justin Bardwell leading the team in RBI with 10.
John Stankiewicz gets the start for the Rams pic.twitter.com/C5wqKqmq6J
— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) February 21, 2018
They will be in Maryland this weekend for a tournament, they will play Towson twice and Cornell.
2. St. John’s (Record: 3-9)
They’ve challenged themselves with an extremely tough schedule to open the season, playing teams like UCLA, San Diego and UC Irvine, so the record is a bit misleading. In the past week, they’ve lost a one-run game, two-run game and two three-run games, so they’re right on the verge. They need to get their offense going. Their team average is .206 with a .274 OBP. The pitching is struggling as well, with a 5.66 team ERA and 1.75 WHIP.
They will face Iona for a single game on Wednesday before welcoming Kansas in for a three-game set.
3. Stony Brook (Record: 3-6)
They had the rare five consecutive rainouts. I thought they would’ve gotten in yesterday’s DH, but the snow from earlier in the week made the field unplayable. They will be back in action on Tuesday against Iona and Wednesday against LIU Brooklyn, before opening up their America East slate this weekend against UMBC.
4. Hofstra (Record: 2-9)
They nearly beat Fordham in back-to-back games, but relinquished the lead both times, losing 4-3. They have gotten a great start to the season from freshman Anthony D’Onofrio and junior Rob Weissheier. From the pitching staff, the bright spots have been freshman Ryan Rue (17.2 IP, 3.06 ERA), senior Michael James (17.0 IP, 3.18 ERA) and senior Andrew Mundy (10.2 IP, 1.69 ERA).
They will be back in action next weekend at Liberty.
Division-II:
- NYIT (Record: 7-3)
They’ve really been the story of the season so far through one month of play. They’ve shown resiliency, bouncing back from a 17-7 drubbing with a 7-2 win today, behind Chris Mott and Joseph Murphy. Incredibly. they are hitting .314 after 10 games. Zach Kleinwaks is leading the team in hitting at .444, John LaRocca has been an outstanding pickup, he’s leading the team with 15 hits and second with a .441 AVG. Jake Lebel is right behind him at .414 while E.J. Cumbo and Ryan Kuskowski are next, tied at .406. That is tough to fathom at the Division-II level. The overall team ERA is inflated from the 17 runs in one game, but they have three relievers (Ariel Taveras, Zach White, Ryan Mueller) that are yet to allow a run. Joe Murphy has a 0.79 ERA over 11.1 IP. Freshman Dean Fazah has been great, contributing to their combined no-hitter a couple weeks ago. In my opinion, Joe Keller and Alex Doskoez will emerge as two dominant freshmen pitchers as well. Once they get Chris Keenan and Chris Mott into form they have the potential for a light-out staff.
They will be back in action 10 days from today against Adelphi.
2. LIU Post (Record: 7-6)
They’ve won seven of their last nine games, to right the ship immediately. They won three of four at the USA Complex in Cary, NC, with the only loss coming by one run. James Varela fired a CG shutout on Friday night, and they won both games this afternoon. Brian Kavanagh has had a resurgent start to his season, with a 1.69 ERA through 10.2 IP. Freshman Joshua Loeschorn is 2-0 with a 3.00 through 15 IP. Noah Lorenzo has dealt with some tough luck, he’s 1-3 with a 3.42 ERA.
Offensively, Chris Wasson has been a revelation. The sophomore is leading the team with 16 hits, 7 RBI and 10 runs scored. He’s the only regular, though, over .271 so they will need to get going to pick up the pitching staff.
They will play their home opener next Saturday against Assumption.
3. Adelphi (Record: 3-2)
After winning their first two games and looking like a powerhouse, they have lost two of their last three games. They will be in Florida all week, though, and will have the opportunity to solidify their pitching staff behind Ed Baram, who had another 10 strikeout performance on Saturday. Offensively, the combination of Brandon Morse, Tyler Becker, Lawrence Cicileo and Brett Malm have combined to hit over .400. The rest of the lineup will need to pick up the slack. They will be back in action on Tuesday against Lynn University.
4. Queens (Record: 4-6-1)
Things have turned south a bit after their 2-0 start, but they have certainly been competitive and they have shown the ability to pile up runs in bunch, evidenced by their 12 runs today against Southern Connecticut. Eric Roubal has been red-hit, hitting at a .491 clip to start the season with 18 hits already. Lou Antos is not far behind with 14 hits. The 7.48 ERA has been the issue, they will work on lowering that this weekend against Bloomfield in a four-game set.
5. Molloy (Record: 1-6)
They got the first win out of the way today against Adelphi. Tim Panetta carried a no-hitter into the fifth inning, but things got a little murky when Adelphi cut the 6-0 lead down to 6-4. Fortunately, the offense got going and they won, 12-5. They were led by Jake Saltzman (4-for-5, 5 RBI) and Matt Overton (3-for-5). Overall, the offense has been great; hitting .286 as a team led by Sean Hogan (.357 AVG, .938 OPS), Saltzman (.346 AVG), Thomas Brady (.346), Michael Wall (.333), Nick Marino (.333) and Chris Peralta (.333)
They will remain in Florida until Wednesday, they will have games against Southern New Hampshire and American International College.
Division-III:
- Farmingdale (Record: 2-0)
They have the makings of a very, very strong team. They were able to sweep the double header against Lehman the other day with Brian Perez providing the walk-off hit. They were without two of their best hitters (Vinny Rice and Shawn Blasberg) serving their suspensions from the Skyline Conference championship last year. They have enough depth where they can weather that, plus Perez was the Conference MVP in 2015 out of MacArthur, so he’s the kind of player that could start on many teams. The offense is pretty loaded–the additions of Vin Napolitano, Morgan McCarthy reinforce that. With Matthew Constantine atop the rotation, returning arms like Joe Marino, transfers like Anthony Visconte (Cortland), Steven Burke (St. Rose), Anthony Pristera (Nassau CC) and a freshman like Robert Bellotti, they have the most pitching depth they’ve had in many years and are the favorite to win the conference. When you give this many weapons to Ozzie, he finds a way.
2. USMMA (Record: 6-3)
I think they’re going to have a shot to win it all this season. They are hitting .309 as a team.Here’s a breakdown of their starters and their averages.
Jesse Reinebold – .382
Vincenzo Altieri – .351
Garrett Aichele – .348
Kyle Cunningham – .344
Tyler Mowry – .333
Alex Mesaros – .320
Matt Mundorf – .300
Their three starters (Andrew Spinnenweber, Joe Raab, Ben Kane) have all been outstanding through two starts. They are going to be trouble. I give the slight edge to Farmingdale at this moment due to overall pitching depth, which comes into play during Championship Sunday.
3. Old Westbury (Record: 1-2-1)
I wasn’t sure how much pitching they would have, but after seeing Christian Tessitore, Brandon O’Brien and Patrick Quinn this weekend, I’m convinced they have enough to compete. That’s without seeing Adam Heidenfelder, who will make his season debut coming back from labrum surgery. Obviously, not an easy surgery to recover from. It ended my career, but Heidenfelder is already game-ready, and the indication is that he’s back to form. Even if he is not his old self, Tessitore was 86-87, O’Brien was his usual crafty self and Quinn was 89-90 his whole outing. They also have some depth with Steven Tellerias and Joshua Cruz and Matt Bohenek in the bullpen. Pitching depth was a major concern last season, it appears they addressed that in the offseason. They never struggle to score runs. With returning All-Long Island bats like John Condon (five hits yesterday) and Mike Manetta, they should be fine. Brandon Wilson and Sean Paprocki are two transfers that should have an immediate impact along with returners Peter Capel and Dom Kriegel.
4. Maritime (Record: 4-5)
After starting 3-1, they have dropped four of five. They are not going to be a poor team this season, they are just young and I think they will have some young players experiencing a learning curve. They are hitting an uncharacteristic .242 as a team. They have been led by Jake Vera (.333, 6 RBI) and Phil Russo (7 RBI), who just compiled his 100th career hit in just over two seasons.They won’t lay down this season with Charlie Barbieri at the helm, but their 6.12 team ERA and 1.59 WHIP indicates it may simply be a transitional year for them.
Ju-Co:
Coming next week!
