By PAUL GOTHAM
Eight games in six days, that’s what is on the docket for Monroe Community College Baseball (27-6) this week.
Starting Tuesday afternoon at Falcon Park in Auburn, New York, the Tribunes will play road twin bills on three consecutive days beginning with Cayuga Community College (No. 11 NJCAA DIII) and continuing with Genesee CC before heading to Erie CC on Thursday.
MCC returns home for a doubleheader with Finger Lakes CC on Sunday.
With the postseason 10 days away, the Tribs are finding their stride at the right time.
Monroe ranks in the top ten (NJCAA Division II) in team statistics of five separate categories: batting average, on-base percentage (OBP), triples, earned-run average (ERA) and strikeouts per nine innings (K/9).
MCC’s batting average of .357 is good for eighth in the nation while an OBP of .482 ranks ninth and total team triples of 32 is second in all of NJCAA DII.
Michael Sardou (Churchville-Chili HS) leads Monroe in all three of the categories hitting .480 with an OBP of .482. Sardou’s 11 triples is tops in the nation – this despite MCC (33 games) having played 20 fewer games than South Mountain Community College (53 games), where Bobby Pierce, Jr., ranked second in the country, has eight three-baggers on the season.
Braedon Reina (Churchville-Chili HS) is hitting .413 with an OBP of .548. Aidan Gallagher (John Jay-East Fishkill HS) has four triples.
Cos Zeiser (Victor HS) has a 2.66 ERA in 40.2 innings of work to lead a staff that is tied for sixth in the country at 4.84. Jaden Sherwood (Notre Dame-Batavia HS) comes in with an ERA of 3.24.
Connor Osier (Greece Athena HS) is striking out batters at a rate of 15.12 per nine innings, and Tribune arms are second at 12.24. Miguel Matos (East HS) has a 13.68 K/9 while Cameron Bentley (Toronto, ON/Humberside) comes in at 13.5.
The Tribs take a 13-game winning streak into action on Tuesday. A doubleheader sweep last week at Lackawanna College stands out among those wins. The Falcons had taken six of eight from Monroe over the three previous seasons including the only two games played at Scranton High School – Lackawanna’s home field.
Last Tuesday, the Tribunes turned the tables last week to take three of four regular season matchups from the Region 19 foe.
The relief performance from Luke Lance (Toronto, ON/Birchmount) helped secure the Game 2 win. Lance entered in the fourth inning of a 7-4 game (Monroe in the lead) with runners on first and second and no outs.
The first-year left-hander turned in his longest outing of the season in a 12-7 win.
“He’s really showed us that he can compete at the college level,” said MCC head coach Dave Brust. “It’s fun to watch him mature into that and have success.”
Lance struck out six over four innings of work. He allowed one run on one hit and two walks.
“He spots his fastball, but he’s got a little slider that lefty hitters have a hard time with,” Brust said. “He throws a split-finger that bottoms out late into the zone. He throws strikes, and he competes.
“What really helps him the most is he’s 6-foot-8. He gets a lot of downward plane into the strike zone. That’s an advantage of taller pitchers, and he uses that.”
MCC is 39th in the country with a .955 fielding percentage. The Tribunes are coming off a stretch from April 2nd against Erie to April 16th against Genesee (parts or all of 12 games) where they played without an error for 61 innings – the longest such streak in the 13 seasons with Brust at the helm.
Monroe’s current 13-game winning streak is the best since Brust’s 2018 squad won 18 straight. The program record is 29 straight wins in 1989 under then-head coach Dave Chamberlain. MCC won 21 in a row under Skip Bailey in 2005.
Monroe will head to Connecticut to face UConn-Avery Point on May 8th in the NJCAA DII Sub-Districts.
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