For many of our college guys, mostly at the D3 level, we are right at the end of the regular season as conference tournaments are ready to get going.
Conference tournaments in baseball are the best, because for many teams, winning the conference tournament is the only way to make the NCAA tournament. There are obviously plenty of at-large bids to be given out, but the only way to 100% guarantee that you make the big dance is to get the automatic bid from the conference.
Brad Johnston certainly looks like he wants Swarthmore to go dancing.
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Brad Johnston, Swarthmore (Episcopal)
Brad Johnston was hitting .140 two weeks ago.
He was hitting .140 through 45 at bats, so it wasn’t exactly a small sample size either. Two weeks later, he is now hitting .296.
Since we have been covering local baseball in Delco since 2022, I am not sure I have ever seen a week like this. I mean, some of these numbers would be considered good for an entire season!
In this past week, Johnston had at least one home run and had multiple hits in all four games. He began the week with back-to-back 5 RBI games and had 2 in each of the last two.
He homered once against Haverford at home, twice at Haverford on the road three days later, and then homered in both games of a double header at home against McDaniel. He was also walked four times and hit twice, so that OBP has just skyrocketed.
That’s just a ridiculous turnaround for a season that looked like a disaster up until two weeks ago. He now has 8 HR on the year and Swarthmore is 14-4 in the Centennial Conference heading into this week’s tournament.
The Garnet will take on Haverford College once again in the first round of the tournament, so we’ll see if Johnston can continue that same success that he had against them this week with the stakes even higher.
Quinten Perilli, Elizabethtown (Penncrest)
Five hits in one game? That will do.
A huge congratulations to Quinten who, as just a junior, is now the all-time leader in RBI in Elizabethtown College history with 138. He set the all-time HR record last year as a sophomore (up to 28 now), which is just hilarious.
Perilli hasn’t quite had the same power this year as he has had in his first two years, but he is hitting just as well as he ever has. He’s now sitting with a .371 average and 1.068 OPS for the Blue Jays, who are 26-11 overall and 19-5 in their conference.
I would like to think that there is a solid chance Elizabethtown makes the NCAA D3 Tournament even if they don’t win the Landmark, but they will have the chance to control their own path starting May 9th in Lancaster as they will be playing at the Barnstormers stadium.
Ryan Reed, Pitt (The Haverford School)
Haverford School alum and Ridley Park native Ryan Reed has had some great outings this year for Pitt, and this one is right up there among the best.
Reed went seven innings for the third time this season and did so against a very good North Carolina team, allowing just two earned runs with four hits and seven strikeouts.
Reed missed all of his senior year in 2022 after getting Tommy John surgery, and barely pitched as a freshman in 2023. He really struggled in 2024, but he has cut his ERA in half to 4.53 and became a big part of Pitt’s rotation in 2025.
Pitt is 20-21 overall and 6-15 in the ACC, so they are going to have to go on a cinderella run to win the ACC Tournament make the NCAA D1 Tournament. For Reed, this is a great second full season of D1 pitching and it will be very exciting to see him continue to develop and see if he could potentially become an MLB Draft prospect in the future.
CJ Nocella, Wilmington (Bonner)
CJ Nocella has started to get some legitimate opportunities at Division II Wilmington University in Delaware, and he has taken full advantage of them.
For the first time in his college career, he was given three at bats in both games of a doubleheader against Georgian Court. All he did in those games was go a combined 5/6. He pinch hit again against #18 Goldy-Beacom in their next game and had a hit.
All this guy does is hit.
It’s not the biggest sample size, but Nocella is hitting .588 as a freshman in the chances he has gotten. Wilmington is 30-18 overall and 22-10 in their conference, so it’s probably still up in the air whether they will make the NCAA Tournament or not if they don’t win their conference.
The first round of the CACC Tournament begins on Friday and the next rounds will be held at Wilmington next week.
Frank Parrotti, DeSales (O’Hara)
Make that two weeks in a row on this list for Frank Parrotti!
The senior had a couple of tough outings in the middle parts of the season, but he really turned it up in the stretch run here for Division III DeSales. He has now gone seven innings in each of the last two starts, this time striking out ten hitters against King’s while allowing zero earned runs over seven innings.
He allowed no earned runs for the second time in a start this season and now has a 4.53 ERA.
Parrotti is a senior so that could be his last start in the college baseball world, and if so, that’s a great way to end your career. See you in the Delco League with the rest of us.
Tommy Bradley, RCSJ-Gloucester (Bonner)
Shameless plug if you have not read it yet, but go check out my feature article on Tommy Bradley, who made his college baseball debut after not having played school baseball since 2019.
Bradley got his first start against Salem and was very sharp, going 5.2 innings with eight strikeouts and just two hits allowed with one earned run.
Bradley has mostly been operating as a reliever for the Roadrunners, who are a staggering 41-4 and 24-0 in their conference as they look to win their third straight JUCO National Championship.
It seems like it’s a very crowded pitching staff over there, but hopefully we see Bradley get some innings and get a ring in the process.
Kyle Lazer, West Chester (Bonner)
I haven’t taken the time to go back and check yet for sure, but I am about 99% sure that Kyle Lazer has the most appearances on this list throughout the season so far.
He’s really only had one “bad” outing this year and that was last week against Bloomsburg. He rebounded in a huge way against rival Millersville by going eight innings allowing just five hits with three earned runs and six strikeouts.
He now has an excellent 2.83 ERA in his first year as a starter after being a bullpen pitcher for the Golden Rams.
It’s been a bit of an odd year for West Chester, who has dominated in their out of conference record with a 32-13 record overall but has been just ok in the PSAC at 14-10.
The PSAC Tournament will be hosted next week by Millersville, so we’ll get a better idea of what their NCAA Tournament path looks like after that, but I think that out of conference record will boost their resume a ton if they don’t win the PSAC.
Mike Valente, Cal U PA (Strath Haven)
Speaking of the PSAC, Mike Valente may be a problem for West Chester if they run into him.
In fact, everyone who has faced him has failed so far this year. He has started nine games and has recorded the victory in all nine. That is an insane amount of consistency to be able to go deep in every game like that, very rare at the college level.
Mike has a 2.41 ERA this year, his first two years in college were “good” but we have moved into “great” territory this year. Cal U is 32-9 on the year and 17-6 in the PSAC, so we will certainly see Mike and the Vulcans in the conference tournament and I would like to think that overall record will earn them a spot in the NCAA D2 Tournament regardless of what happens.
Bryan Henry, Misericordia (Bonner)
Something was in the air with these Bonner guys this week.
They make up 4/10 of the members of this list, with Bryan Henry wrapping it up thanks to six innings with no earned runs, four hits, and five strikeouts.
Henry has been great this season for the reigning Division 3 National Champions, with a 3.06 ERA in 50 innings pitched. This Misericordia team has been decent overall at 26-14 and 14-7 in the conference, but obviously not quite as strong as they were in their National Championship run last year which is to be expected.
Misericordia will take on Arcadia this weekend for a three-game series in the MAC Freedom semi-finals. If they win that, they may very well take on the same Stevens team that Henry just carved.
Either way, expect to see him on the mound in a playoff game this weekend at home.
Casey Murphy, Holy Family (Lower Merion)
It certainly makes me feel better about myself to see guys who were my age level in legion ball still playing in college.
Grad student Casey Murphy spent his undergrad career at Ursinus and is now at Holy Family to finish things off. It’s been a very solid season for him this year with a 3.79 ERA in 54.2 innings pitched.
This start was certainly one of the best of the year for him as he went seven innings with three hits and one earned run to go along with six strikeouts.
Holy Family will not be making their conference tournament so it looks like Murphy should have one final start coming up this week against Lincoln to end a stellar career.