Disheartened baseball Griffs look for hope in opening home series

By: Andrew Nowel, Sports Layout Editor

Returning to the Demske for the first time this season, the baseball team comes home to Buffalo after a frustrating weekend sweep at the hands of the Mount Saint Mary’s Mountaineers. With the weather bleak and tension high, the Griffs look forward to their next challenge, the Merrimack Warriors, where every pitch matters in the crucial three-game series.

The Warriors enter the weekend on a four-game road trip that began last weekend in New Rochelle, N.Y. where they took two of three against the Iona Gaels before returning to Massachusetts and playing nearby opponent, the Northeastern Huskies. A 4–2 start to MAAC play has the Warriors in great position to earn a top seed in the conference tournament in two months, but there’s a lot of baseball left to play.

Canisius Head Coach Matt Mazurek gave credit to the Warriors’ program when asked about the upcoming matchup with Merrimack. “They’re playing good baseball right now. They’ve won their first two conference series, and they just beat an annually ranked opponent, so we have to work on putting in the extra work to perform this weekend,” said Mazurek.

For Canisius, the main problem last weekend in Maryland against the Mountaineers was a problem they dealt with at the beginning of the season: the inability to get the big hit at the right time. In the second game of the series on Saturday, the Griffs tallied three runs in the ninth inning to shorten the Mount’s lead to one with the tying run at third and the go-ahead run at second, but the game ended when redshirt freshman Bennett Cox flew out to left field. The problem persisted on Sunday in game three and Mazurek addressed the issue before practice on Wednesday, March 18. “They have to focus on the task at hand. It’s not all about homers and doubles because they also want to win. Homers and doubles come when you do things the right way. They’re going to have more result-based work this week to work on the ability to understand counts,” said Mazurek. Being able to have more time to practice this week, the Griffs expect to utilize this to reset their mindset. 

The best news for the Griffs came last Saturday when junior JC Spinosa returned to his primary position of shortstop after dealing with a shoulder injury that kept Spinosa’s arm limited. Freshman Grady Brown, who stepped up at short, will lose opportunities as Mazurek expects junior Eric Weeks to return to second base with Spinosa back at short. Still, Brown’s time in the lineup showed Mazurek and the coaching staff the potential that he has.

An expected temperature of mid to upper 40s during the weekend with chances of rain on Friday and Sunday will affect the games, but Mazurek is confident in his team to regroup with the first home series of the 2026 season. Only three games into conference play, the Griffs are ready to flip the script and send the Warriors back to North Andover, Mass. with three more losses on their record, and it starts with the ace on Friday, senior Felix Morin.

Via Joe Lehrman