Charlie Karstedt
Assistant, New York

Canisius 7     St. Joe's 1

Two of the top teams in the state, and certainly the cream of the crop in Buffalo squared off on a brisk gloomy day at Delaware Park in the city.  This was the first meeting of two teams who could very well battle again later in the season for the Georgetown Cup of the Monsignor Martin League. They’ll square off again this afternoon for game two of their regular season tilt. 

With a crowd of area scouts, cross checkers, and associate scouts behind the backstop, New York's No. 4 prospect in the 2016 class, LHP Dan Dallas (Monmouth) took the mound to face a solid Marauders lineup. He wasted no time showing his stuff striking out the first three batters of the game. His fastball was 88-90 in the first along with a sharp 71-74 breaking ball. In the bottom half of the inning Senior Mercyhurst commit Zach Mitchell drew a leadoff walk and was then driven in by an RBI triple off the bat of Dan Dallas. Another Mercyhurst commit, Vinny Chiarenza then notched an RBI ground out scoring Dallas. The Crusaders got their third run of the inning when Junior backstop Will Lawrence drove an RBI triple to the gap. 

In the third inning Dallas got into some trouble giving up a leadoff double to junior center-fielder Gavin Collura followed by a single from senior Jordan Jenneve.  A walk to follow left bases loaded for Dallas.  He showed ice in his veins by striking out three batters to get out of the inning with no damage. In the fourth inning Zach Mitchell ripped an RBI double followed by an RBI line drive single from Dallas to tack on some more insurance.  

No. 29 ranked, 7th RHP in NY's 2016 class, Will Frank (Canisius) also showed a lot of upside on the mound. Despite five errors behind him that prolonged some innings, he was able to tally 8K’s and 3BB’s. His FB sat 85-88 most of the day touching a few at 89 as well. Breaking ball was sharp and showed consistency with it 73-75 and good late break.  If you take away a few very costly errors this game could have been a tight race down to the wire in the 7th.

Standout players of the game were Zach Mitchell who was 1-1 with big RBI double and three BB’s as well as some head turning play in center robbing a deep fly ball that could have been extra bags. Dan Dallas helped his own cause going 2-4 at the dish with and RBI triple and RBI single as well.  Junior Gavin Collura showed that he would not be overmatched by MLB prospect Dan Dallas and drove a double and a triple off of him. Senior Jordan Jenneve also notched two hits in the contest.  Collura and Jenneve accounted for the only four hits that Dallas has given up in the last 11 innings of work since being back in Buffalo.  This dating back to his previous start last Monday where he threw five innings of no hit scoreless ball and 12 K’s in that performance.

All in all this matchup lived up to the hype. Both pitchers showed why they are two of the most dominant forces in the state while Canisius hitters showed their experience at the plate and were able to capitalize on some costly mistakes by a young but highly talented St. Joe’s team.  Each time these two square off it will be quality baseball.


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