Herkimer Generals host region's baseball Final Four as top seed

LITTLE FALLS – The lineup is the same for this year's Region III baseball Final Four as it was in 2021. Niagara County Community College, Erie Community College and Finger Lakes Community College from the west will once again join Herkimer College, the sole survivor from the region’s east, for double elimination play at Veterans Memorial Park starting Thursday afternoon.

Herkimer is the top seed with its 34-5 record, No. 6 national ranking and 25-0 record within regional competition. Fifth-ranked Niagara (46-8, 25-3 Region III), the defending champion, is seeded third behind ninth-ranked Erie (43-10-1, 26-2 Region III) and Finger Lakes (36-19, 19-9 Region III) is seeded fourth. Niagara entered last year’s tournament as the No. 1 seed and did not lose until the first game of the championship round.

“I love our draw,” Herkimer coach Jason Rathbun said Tuesday.

The Generals have not played Erie this season and lost two games against Niagara in Florida during spring break but they beat Finger Lakes 4-3 in the rain-shortened first game of a scheduled doubleheader April 14 and “they really didn’t get to see our pitching,” Rathbun pointed out.

“Our team has changed quite a bit,” the coach added, referring to the Generals’ 8-6 and 5-1 losses to the 2021 champs in a March 15 doubleheader.

Play starts Thursday at 2 p.m. with the second game scheduled for a 5 p.m. first pitch.

Herkimer and Niagara have combined to win the last nine regional championships.

Sports: Herkimer College baseball, softball teams sweep through opening regional playoff series

Sports: Herkimer falls to Niagara County CC in regional baseball final

Regional dominance

Niagara (five) or Herkimer (four) has won every Division III title since Erie last won it in 2011. Herkimer owns seven regional titles in all and Niagara owns six since Division III was formed 30 years ago.

Finger Lakes won its first regional title in 1992, the year play was split into two divisions, and the Lakers repeated two years later.

Erie is the only Final Four team to have won a single-division title (1977) and the Kats have won five since the split.

The other nine Division III regional titles have been won by Mohawk Valley Community College (two), Hudson Valley Community College (two), Columbia-Greene Community College (two), Schenectady County Community College (two) and Jamestown Community College (one). Hudson Valley won seven single-division titles and Schenectady won one.

Who to watch

Herkimer features three returning Region III all-stars. Left-handed pitcher Greg Farone, second baseman Kyle Caccamise and outfielder Dakota Britt were first-team selections as freshmen, as were Erie’s Greg Hare, Niagara’s Andrew Fairbrother and Finger Lakes’ Tim McClare.

Farone leads the region with 100 strikeouts – the University of Louisville-bound hurler averages 21.43 per nine innings – and ranks fourth with a 2.14 ERA behind freshman teammate Ryan Packard’s region-best 0.60. Packard’s nine victories are tied for second in the region behind Erie’s Connor Desiderio, a regional tournament all-star last spring who has won 11 games in 2022.

As a team, the Generals strike out batters at the highest rate in the nation – 13.82 per nine innings – and have nine pitchers averaging at least one per inning. Sophomore left-hander Ethan Patch, Thursday’s scheduled starter, averages 11.05 and has a 4-1 record with a 2.45 ERA in six starts and 36 2/3 innings.

“Our big three up top is probably the best big three in the region,” Rathbun said of Farone, Packard and Patch. “I’ve always said that you’ve got to have three dudes to win this, and these are three dudes.”

Tournament teams feature five of the region’s six leading hitters and Herkimer has four of the top 10. Erie’s Adam Rankie finished second in the batting race behind Cayuga Community College’s Hazel Martinez, the NJCAA’s Division III leader. Rankie is batting .503 with eight home runs which are tied for sixth in the region. Britt is the region’s third-leading hitter (.441) and home run leader (14) and ranks second in the nation with a .941 slugging percentage.

Rounding out the top six hitters are Niagara’s Alex Minnehan (.435) and Vincent Stutz (.427), and Erie’s Hare (.421). Hare ranks second in the region in home runs (13) and leads in RBI (83).

Mike Gunning (.402), Sal Carricato (.402) and Caccamise (.395) are eighth, ninth and 10th in hitting for Herkimer. Gunning is tied for third with 10 home runs and Carricato is fifth with nine. Caccamise, the leadoff hitter for the Generals, reaches base at a .530 rate, now trailing Britt (.537) and Gunning (.536) on his own team. Herkimer’s team on base percentage of .478 ranks third in the nation and edges Niagara’s .476 for the regional lead.

Gunning returned to the lineup for last weekend’s sub-regional sweep of Onondaga Community College and Jovani Wiggs is expected back Thursday.

“I don’t think we’ve really had this lineup together,” Rathbun said of his planned Final Four starting group. Wiggs’ playing time picked up while Gunning was hurt, and Jordan Lewis stepped into center field when Trey Miller shifted to shortstop, allowing Chance Checca to move to third base and Britt to return to the outfield.

“The biggest move for us is Trey Miller at shortstop,” Rathbun said. “It makes our defense better because it lets Chance be a third baseman which is a position he’s more familiar with and it puts Britt in the outfield where he wants to be.”

Miller came to Herkimer from Rocky Point as an outfielder and took over center field as a freshman last spring. He also backed up Caccamise at second base until the switch to shortstop was made against Jefferson Community College about a month ago.

“I’m really glad we made that change

The Format

The regional Final Four is a double elimination tournament scheduled over three days.

Each team plays one game Thursday with Thursday’s losers meeting in the first game Friday and Thursday’s winners playing the second as a semifinal. Friday’s nightcap pits the winner of the elimination game against the loser of the first semifinal to determine the second finalist.

The semifinal winners meet Saturday afternoon. The first qualifier needs to win once to claim the title. If the losers bracket team wins the first game, a second game is played to determine the champion.

Niagara advanced to the championship round without a loss last year and was beaten 19-8 by Herkimer in the first game. The Thunderwolves regrouped and won the tournament with an 11-10 victory in the second game.

All games are scheduled for nine innings with a two-tiered mercy rule for the first five games; play is stopped with a 10-run margin after five innings or an eight-run margin after seven. The game or games in the championship round play out the full nine innings regardless of the score.

There is one wild berth available for the national tournament, allowing for the possibility that the regional runner-up could advance.

Jon Rathbun is a sportswriter for the Times Telegram. Email Jon at sports@timestelegram.com.

This article originally appeared on Times Telegram: Herkimer College hosts NJCAA Region III baseball Final Four