BY WAYNE WITKOWSKI
Staff Writer
A year ago, Brick pitcher Joe Testa spent the summer working on his pitching in a Florida collegiate league.
This summer, coming off a record-setting season as a sophomore at Wagner College, the left-hander instead has joined his college teammates and taken his talents north to the New York Collegiate Baseball League.
“It’s good so far,” said Testa, who is playing for the Little Falls Diamond Miners that won five of their first seven games. “The competition is good and all of the teams in our division have a winning record.”
Testa is staying in a dormitory setup in the rolling, bucolic countryside outside of Syracuse, and says he has “picked up where I left off so far. Hopefully I’ll be able to throw [a lot of pitches].”
In 5 2/3 innings pitched in his one appearance entering last weekend’s action, Testa allowed seven hits, five of them infield hits. But he has 11 strikeouts, and that has proved to be his forte since blazing a great career at Brick Township High.
“I got my fastball a little faster in the last half of the year [at Wagner],” said Testa, who said his maturing on the mound and greater strength with it has helped increase the velocity into the 90 mph frontier on occasion.
“I didn’t go to it early as much, mostly curve balls and sliders. The slider is a cutter, probably my best pitch.”
Pitching as the No. 2 starter in the rotation behind Andrew Bailey, who was selected in the sixth round of the recent Major League Baseball free agent draft by the Oakland A’s, Testa set individual marks while helping Wagner reach a school-record 15 victories in the Northeast Conference.
In the process, Testa achieved his own school records with 98 strikeouts in 88 1/3 innings, both new standards at the school. He also led the team this season in victories with seven and complete games with five. He had one shutout later in the season to improve his ERA to 4.38 after a slow start. In fact, it was one point higher at 5.40 two-thirds of the way through the season.
Testa also made the NEC All-Tournament team when he pitched a dominating 3-1 victory over Quinnipiac, the No. 2 seed in the tournament. Testa struck out 10 in his first-ever nine-inning complete game (his other complete games were seven-inning games as part of conference doubleheaders. Those games also were his first complete games of his career over seven innings).
Wagner finished in third place in the tournament after losing in the semifinals to No. 1 seed Central Connecticut State and finished 18-33.
“After this past season, I feel I’ve settled in,” said Testa. “I have a lot more confidence in what I can do. This [summer] team is like an All-Star team. With the defense playing behind me, these are the best players on their [college] teams, and that makes me feel better.”
But it took some frustrating games in March before Testa could find himself with the help of pitching coach Jim Carone. In fact, he even played about a dozen games in the outfield because of injuries to players there when he wasn’t pitching. It gave him the chance to hit for himself, highlighted by a 2-for-3 outing for two RBIs against Mount St. Mary’s.
“In the beginning, it was a rough start because we were playing three of the top 25 teams in the national rankings at the time – James Madison, Central Florida and Winthrop,” said Testa. “My ERA was about 21. When we came back from Florida [early season trip], we did better. I changed my windup and started to settle in. I felt I was getting better.”
Testa, who lost only one of his last eight decisions in a 7-4 season (a loss to Monmouth in which he left the game trailing 4-3 in the seventh), said he also could feel his teammates growing in confidence.
“The seniors started to step up with big hits,” said Testa, who was cutting down on his walks from early in the season.
Now, Testa is concentrating on getting ready for fall ball and a good fall baseball season that often includes scrimmage games against national powerhouse junior college Brookdale.
“Running helps, and on the team, every day I do long toss,” said Testa.
“Right now, I’m just fine-tuning and trying to get everything better.”