I haven’t been around forever, but I can’t remember a week that has even approached what we have going on this week. For starters, the biggest story line is that three of the local Division-II colleges are involved in the NCAA Regional. This means there is a 38 percent chance that one of them will advance to the Super Regionals, and at least a glimmer of hope that it could be an all-LI Super Regional. That would be incredible.
Let’s not forget that Farmingdale State will be opening up their NCAA Regional at Johns Hopkins in Maryland. Had the PGA Championship not been at Bethpage Black Course, there is a real chance that Farmingdale would’ve hosted that side of the bracket. In any event, the Rams are in the midst of their best season since 2012 when they came within a run of advancing to their second College World Series in four seasons.
Suffolk is hosting the Super Regionals against Rhode Island CC in a best-of-three series.
Big weekends for the Division-I teams; Stony Brook, Fordham, St. John’s and Hofstra as the Division-I regular season wraps up.
Lastly, the high school postseason is upon us. We will dive into that heavily as well. Let’s take a deeper look at each of these event.
Division-II Regionals:
This is surely to garner to most interest this week as we have an extremely rare occurrence of three local Division-II teams all in the same eight-team East Regional, with Adelphi hosting right in our backyard. The Panthers open up on Thursday against No. 8 Franklin Pierce at noon. Don’t be fooled by their ranking, the Ravens are one of the D-II powerhouses in the nation and they are in the midst of a four-game winning streak in which they needed each of those wins to continue their season. Additionally, the Ravens are 19-12-1 all-time against Adelphi. With Ed Baram on the hill–who owns the lowest D-II ERA in the nation, the Panthers have all the confidence in the world, but they also haven’t played since last Tuesday’s first-round exit against Southern Connecticut.
LIU Post will play on the other side of the bracket at Southern New Hampshire. They will face No. 6 Felician. You can easily make the case that the Pioneers, coming off their second ECC Championship in three seasons are in great position to advance. They are red-hot, and have won in dominant fashion including a 15-0 win over Bridgeport in the Championship game. With three pitchers that have routinely pitched deep into games and limited runs, they have what it takes to advance.
NYIT, coming off an early exit in the ECC Tournament are in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1983. They will play on Thursday at 3pm against Wilmington (DE). The Bears are in a unique situation where they are playing with house money, they have already exceeded expectations for this season in Frank Catalanotto’s first year. If they can ride the arm of DJ Masuck in Game 1, their outlook becomes much brighter. The offense, led by E.J. Cumbo’s .450 AVG was firing on all cylinders in the second game of their conference tournament but shutout in the elimination game by Bridgeport.
Farmingdale Riding High
The Rams are fresh off their first Skyline Conference title since 2014. They are 32-7 and playing as well as anyone. They will travel to Maryland to face Johns Hopkins on Friday at 2pm. As I mentioned in the intro, they could’ve–and should’ve–been hosting this Regional. It’s always easier to play on your home turf. They have the seventh best ERA among all D-III teams in the nation. That won’t change on the road, the only possible difficulty could be going from their vast dimensions to a smaller field.
Suffolk Hosting Super Regionals
Coming off the Region XV Championship and having won 14 straight games, the Sharks are riding high.
If you’ve watched Suffolk this season, you know that they have a high-powered offense and two dominant and vastly different starting pitchers. Joe Valentino will be on the mound Friday against Rhode Island CC coming off his 19-K, 2-hit shutout last Friday against Nassau. The 6’5 RHP has generated some draft interest with his fastball that has touched 93 MPH and sat in the upper 80s over the past few starts. He will have the opportunity to impress once again. The 26-5 Sharks are led by Valentino and a lineup that has a .344 AVG and .443 OBP. Their No. 2 starter is Tyler Schmid, a sidearming lefty that resembles the delivery and build of Red Sox ace Chris Sale. Obviously, he doesn’t throw 98 but he has overpowering stuff for this level. He can be an X-Factor in this series. Friday’s game will be at 3pm, Saturday at noon and Sunday (if necessary) at noon.
High School Playoffs
Catholic League will kick off on Wednesday with a double-header at Mitchell Field at 4pm and 7pm. The first game will be No. 3 St. Dominic vs No. 6 Holy Trinity at 4pm and then No. 4 Kellenberg vs No. 5 St. Anthony’s. The winners of those games will advance to play on Monday. The format re-seeds after that round, meaning that No. 1 Chaminade will face the lowest remaining seed and No. 2 St. John the Baptist will face the other winner. Next week will take place at St. Joseph’s College, but we will worry about that next week. I am on record as predicting St. Dominic and St. Anthony’s in the finals. Obviously, Chaminade has made that prediction look foolish with how they have played but the reality is that it’s a playoff and the regular season means nothing. No time to change my pick now.
Nassau will play their play-in games today for Class A before getting into their double-elimination format. Class AA will open up later this week as well. Suffolk will begin on the 18th with the outbracket games between the four lowest seeds.
