The Series:           Towson (4-2) vs. Canisius (0-6)
When:                    Friday, Feb. 27 at 5 p.m. at Harford Community College
                               Saturday, Feb. 28 at 6:30 p.m. at Harford Community College
                               Sunday, March 1 at 2 p.m. | John B. Schuerholz Park
Live Stats:             TowsonTigers.com
 
TOWSON, Md. – The Towson University baseball team hosts Canisius in a three-game series starting Friday.
 
SCHEDULE UPDATE
Friday and Saturday's games have been moved to Harford Community College due to unplayable field conditions at John B. Schuerholz Park. Friday's game is slated for 5 p.m. Saturday's game is scheduled for a 6:30 p.m. start. The Tigers and Griffins will return to John B. Schuerholz Park for Sunday's game at 2 p.m.
 
SCOUTING THE GRIFFINS
Canisius enters the weekend series at 0-6 after being swept in three-game series by Appalachian State and UNC Greensboro. In the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) preseason poll, the Griffins were picked to finish 11^th among 13 teams and did not earn a preseason All-MAAC team selection.
 
CAA PRESEASON HONORS
The Coastal Athletic Association (CAA) released its 2026 preseason All-CAA baseball team on Feb. 4. Two Tigers, catcher Brian Heckelman and outfielder Max D'Alessandro, garnered preseason team selections.
 
In 2025, Heckelman paced the Black & Gold offense in batting average (.365), on-base percentage (.442), slugging percentage (.588), RBIs (42), extra-base hits (20) and total bases (100). The backstop caught runners stealing at a 22.8% (18-79) clip. His 2025 numbers earned the New York native a 2025 All-CAA first team selection, Towson's first since Brady Policelli was named first team all-conference shortstop in 2016.
 
D'Alessandro slashed .312/.398/.529 with 34 RBIs and 35 runs scored in his junior campaign with the Tigers. He paced the team with nine home runs, adding eight doubles and a triple. The New Jersey native was a perfect 5-5 on the base paths and earned an All-CAA honorable mention nod by season's end.
 
THE NEWCOMERS
The Tigers welcome 18 newcomers to this season's squad, 15 transfers and three true freshmen.
 
Highlighting the transfer group is infielder Nigel Sebastianelli, who earned an National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) Div. III Baseball ABCA/Rawlings Gold Glove award at SUNY Niagara last season. Sebastianelli recorded a .937 fielding percentage and committed only eight errors in 127 chances across 47 games in 2025. He batted .468 with two home runs, 15 doubles, six triples, 53 RBIs and 73 runs scored. Sebastianelli also garnered NJCAA Div. III first-team and second-team All-Western New York Athletic Conference selections.
 
Jack Hughes, who was named an NJCAA Div. II second-team All-American at Lackawanna College last season is another focal piece of the transfer class. Hughes finished the 2025 season slashing .433/.567/.773 with 10 home runs, 19 doubles, one triple, 54 RBIs and 56 runs scored in 46 games for the Falcons. Hughes was a first-team All-Region XIX selection and the Region XIX Player of the Year.
 
Other notable transfers include infielder Frank Adamski Jr. and outfielder Keldrin Rodriguez from Harford, pitcher Joey Tuttoilmondo from High Point and pitcher Aden Knowles from NC State.
 
RECORD SCRATCHED
In Towson's opening series of the season against Norfolk State, the Tigers scored 15 runs in the fifth inning of game two of Saturday's doubleheader. That marks a new program record for runs in an inning.
 
The previous record was 14 runs scored in the first inning against Richmond on April 5, 2005. Towson's 28 runs against the Spartans fell two short of matching the all-time record set in that same game against Richmond.
 
LEAGUE'S ORDER OF FINISH
With the Coastal Athletic Association's (CAA) adoption of divisional formatting in baseball for the 2026 season, Towson is in the North Division with Hofstra, Monmouth, Northeastern and Stony Brook.
 
The South Division is comprised of Campbell, Charleston, Elon, North Carolina A&T, UNC Wilmington and William & Mary.
 
In the league's predicted order of finish, the Tigers finished tied for second, with one first-place vote, in the North Division. Northeastern received four first-place votes and 16 total points. Towson, Hofstra and Stony Brook each finished with nine points. Monmouth was picked to finish fifth with seven points.
 
In the South Division, UNCW finished atop the standings with three first-place votes. Charleston (2) and Campbell (1) each earned first-place votes in second and third, respectively. Elon, William & Mary and North Carolina A&T rounded out the South Division.

The top two teams in each division will earn spots in the CAA Championship, hosted by UNCW, in May. The final two spots will be awarded to the two teams ranked the highest, regardless of division, in the Rating Percentage Index (RPI) by season's end.
 
2025 RECAP
Towson finished its 2025 season at 21-35 overall and 11-16 in Coastal Athletic Association (CAA) play, two games out of a spot in the CAA Championship. Four Tigers received all-league honors: catcher Brian Heckelman (First Team), pitcher Nate Nabholz (Second Team), outfielder Max D'Alessandro (Honorable Mention) and infielder Nich Francuzenko (All-Rookie).
 
CELEBRATING 25 YEARS AT JOHN B. SCHUERHOLZ PARK
The 2026 season marks the 25^th anniversary of the opening of John B. Schuerholz Park on April 29, 2001.
 
Schuerholz Park is named in honor of Mr. Schuerholz and his father. Honored as Towson's Alumnus of the Year in 1986, he was the general manager of the Kansas City Royals from 1981 to 1991 and led the Royals to the world championship in 1985. He joined the Braves organization in 1991 and led the Braves to the 1995 World Series title. In 16 years as the Braves' general manager, Atlanta won a record 14-straight divisional titles as well as six National League pennants and one World Series.
 
He was honored as the Major League's Executive of the Year in 1985, an award he also earned with the Braves in 1991. Schuerholz is the first baseball executive to be the general manager of world championship teams in both the American League and the National League.
 
DAN O'CONNELL (1953-2026)
Dan O'Connell, who worked in the Towson media relations office for 35 years from 1979-2014, passed away in January 2026.  He was the longtime SID for Towson baseball/softball among other sports at Towson plus worked with statistics in the National Football League, Canadian Football League, Major League Baseball and several colleges in the area.
 
A Towson Athletics Hall of Fame inductee in 2021, O'Connell was the former vice chair for the CSC Academic All-America program and president of ECAC-SIDA.  He earned numerous awards in his career, including the 2007 Irving T. Marsh Service Bureau Award, the 2008 CoSIDA Lester Jordan Award and the 2016 CoSIDA Lifetime Achievement Award.