Testa getting the job done on the mound for Wagner

From his days when he started throwing a baseball to now,Brick's Joe Testa rarely thought a lot about statistics.

But the Wagner College senior lefthander can't help but notice that he will end his career with the Seahawks as one of their best pitchers ever.

"Before I came here, I always thought of myself as a good pitcher but it never crossed my mind to be at the top of the records," said Testa, a former standout pitcher for Brick Township. "I look at some of them from the 1940s and 1950s and it reassures me that I'm doing more than I expected and exceeding expectations.

"It feels good to look at anything in the conference and see I'm in there," said Testa.

Testa, who came into his game last weekend with a 1.73 ERAthat ranked him No. 11 in the nation, allowed one run in six innings pitched in Wagner's 3-1 victory over Quinnipiac on Saturday that kept it in the thick of the running for a Northeast Conference playoff chase. "I never thought I'd be ranked in the nation. It motivates me to keep throwing shutouts," said Testa, who moved up 10 spots in that category in just one week. He was named Northeast Conference Pitcher of theWeek a week earlier for pitching a 5-0 victory over Mount St. Mary's, his third shutout and 13th complete game of his career.

But that run he allowed to Quinnpiac on Saturday, which was earned, came in the first inning, ending a string of 24 2/3 consecutive innings without an earned run allowed.

WithWagner scoring its three runs in the sixth inning, Testa picked up the victory to go to 6-4 and move into third place in the school's career wins list with 18, after sharing the mark at 17 with former teammate MikeMcTamney.Of his 102 pitches, 72were strikes. His eight strikeouts in the game raise his school career record to 295 in a school record 41 career starts.

It's no wonder he has lived up to his preseason conference billing as the firstplace finisher in the poll: "Pitcher you don't want to face." Not bad for a guy measuring only 5 feet 8 inches.

"Yeah that was nice. I still think of that," said Testa who a season earlier received no conference postseason commendations. "I never realized stats. This year, my strikeouts have gone down. I don't concentrate on striking out people but just getting people [quickly] out so I can get deeper in the game [with fewer pitches thrown]. Not putting people on base is a lot easier than trying to strike everybody out."

Testa has a .184 batting average against on the season and a 0.67 ERA in NEC starts where he holds a 3-1 record. Those are numbers that translate to success for Testa and figure in the Seahawks' drive to make the tournament that they missed last season.

"Every year since my sophomore year, my strikeouts down went little by little and my ERA went down about 1.5 each year," said Testa. "I had a 4.4 ERA in my sophomore year, which is very high, even though I got sevenwins. Inmy junior year, I had a 3.0 ERA but my record was 4-6."

Testa said he is throwing his curveball "a lot more to get it over for third strikes. Last year, I'd getmy third strikes on changeups and had rarely thrown the curve."

Testa said he also is getting double play grounders off it. His fastball still is humming as it did when he was in high school and he breaks it off with a cutter and a slider that he said looks like a fastball as it an each the low 80-mph velocity.

Although he now appreciates the statistics as a gauge for his performance these days, he does not think about themwhen he is on themound and did not think about the earned run scoreless string when he faced Quinnipiac on Saturday.

"I try not to think about it," said Testa. "I just say three more [batters] this inning and 21 outs to go, and then 18 outs to go the next inning, and then 15. It's a little easier on the mind that way."

But his greatest focus, said Testa, is upcoming conference weekends as his victory over Quinnpiac raisedWagner's NEC mark to 11-7 (20-22 overall). The Seahawks go against tournament contender Central Connecticut this weekend and Sacred Heart next weekend as the Seahawks look to be one of four teams playing in Atlantic City in the NEC Tournament on May 22 to 24.