How hockey-crazed Eric Cerantola made his way to Mississippi State

Great Lake Canadians and Junior National Team alum Eric Cerantola (Oakville, Ont.) has gone from being a hockey-crazed scoring star to a hard-throwing pitching prospect with Mississippi State. Photo: Mississippi State Athletics

*This article was originally published in the Mississippi Clarion Ledger on June 7. You can read the original article here.

By Tyler Horka

Mississippi Clarion Ledger

STARKVILLE – The home team’s bullpen door swings open at Dudy Noble Field. It’s a chilly February day in Starkville. The maroon and white-clad fans inside the stadium are bundled up.

The pitcher who emerges from the pen is not. He’s used to a cold-weather climate. It’s in the mid-50s in northeast Mississippi. It’s 23 degrees in the city this pitcher used to call home.

The rumble of a fighter jet echoes from the speakers. A guitar riff is accompanied by the slow beating of drums and the faint sound of a siren. The hum of the plane returns. It’s much louder than it was before as the beat of the song speeds up and intensifies significantly.

Then, it drops.

“Let’s go! Oh, yeah!”

By this time, the Bulldogs’ new pitcher is already on the mound hurling warm-up pitches at nearly 100 miles per hour as “Live it Up” by Australian rock band Airbourne continues to play.

It sounds like something an enraged hockey team would listen to as the players hit the ice before a big game.

That’s because it is.

The story of how a hockey-crazed kid from suburban Canada ended up on the pitcher's mound for one of the premiere college baseball schools in the Southeastern Conference is just as crazy as it sounds.

Eric Cerantola: Not your average pitcher

MSU freshman Eric Cerantola was watching the 2018 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships in his hometown of Oakville, Ontario, a suburban Canadian town outside of Toronto. Airbourne’s hit single played when Team Canada took the ice.

Cerantola knew instantly that he had to make it the tune to which he runs out at Mississippi State. The first time he ever did so, on that chilly day back in February, he threw one scoreless inning in relief with two strikeouts. The radar gun on the scoreboard flashed 97 MPH.

A few months later at the SEC Tournament in Hoover, Cerantola pitched two scoreless innings against LSU and consistently sat in the 96-98 range. A few pitches topped out at 100.

“As we make our run here in the NCAA Tournament, he’s a really nice power option out of the bullpen," MSU pitching coach Scott Foxhall said. "He can come in and really attack hitters like he did in the SEC Tournament. He can really blow batters away with his stuff in short stints.”

Cerantola has luxuries many collegiate pitchers don't. At 6-foot-5, he’s much taller. His fastball is much faster, and he grew up under much different circumstances than his peers. As many Canadians do, Cerantola primarily played hockey while growing up.

Before Cerantola racked up inning-ending strikeouts, he scored game-winning goals. Before he accidentally hit a few batters with errant pitches, he hit a few opponents with body checks — on purpose, of course.

“I could lay the body pretty well,” Cerantola said with a smug smirk.

Multi-sport talent is ‘in his genes'

Franco Cerantola, Eric's father, also grew up playing hockey in Canada. He was a natural, but he soon realized he might've been better at another sport: volleyball. He played the two concurrently until he deemed volleyball to be his strong suit.

Franco played the game in high school and later lettered at Laval University in Quebec City. His standout performances there landed him on Canada's men's national team. He competed with the team on and off from 1980-87.

When Cerantola was just two years old, Franco took him to one of his volleyball practices. He set his son up on one side of the net. Then he hustled to the other side and tossed the ball over.

What the two-year-old did next astonished Franco's teammates.

“He was spiking and bumping the ball back to us at that age instead of catching and throwing,” Franco said.

That's when Franco and his wife, Lucy — who ran track in high school and lettered in volleyball at Royal Military College in Kingston, Ontario — knew they might have bred an athlete more talented than even themselves.

“It’s in his genes," Franco said.

Getting his start

Eric Cerantola first laced up the skates at age six. He played soccer during the summers but had to stop when the family moved from Montreal to Oakville when he was eight. New friends there begged him to pick up baseball.

"I said, 'Hey, I'll try it out,'" said Cerantola, as comparatively lanky then as he is now.

Cerantola played for the Oakville A's, one of the more prominent youth organizations in Canada. He led the team to four straight provincial championship games as an outfielder and a pitcher.

All the while he continued playing hockey. In the 2015-16 season, Cerantola led the Oakville Rangers Minor Midget AAA team in points. He scored 15 goals and had 16 assists for a total of 31 points in 34 games.

Being a point-per-game guy in hockey has potential to earn players large lumps of cash. Cerantola figured that out when he was drafted by the Owen Sound Attack in the eighth round of the Ontario Hockey League Draft in the summer of 2016.

The OHL, one of the best junior hockey leagues in the world, is essentially a pipeline for young players with aspirations of playing in the National Hockey League. Edmonton Oilers captain Connor McDavid, who won the Hart Memorial Trophy as the NHL's MVP in 2017, played in the OHL for three full seasons.

“That’s the first real step toward becoming a pro,” Cerantola said. “Hopefully, what you do there lets you get drafted in the NHL. It’s really big back home.”

Eric Cerantola was a star player for the Oakville Rangers. He led the team in scoring in the 2015-16 season with 15 goals and 16 assists in just 34 games. (Photo: Courtesy of Eric Cerantola)

Just missing the cut

Cerantola was only 16 when he went to the Attack's summer training camp. At 6-foot-4 and 175 pounds, he knew he needed to grow into his long frame before he had a chance of making the team's roster.

Like he expected, he was sent packing at the conclusion of camp. But he didn't hang his head. The Attack's general manager, Dale DeGray, said Cerantola was a "very good skater for his size." DeGray saw potential in Cerantola as a "diamond in the rough" candidate considering he stole him in the eighth round of the draft.

DeGray was aware of Cerantola's background in baseball and figured that would only help his development as a hockey player.

“In any sport, when you draft somebody, you want him to be a good athlete," DeGray said. "Eric looked coordinated in camp. His athleticism was obviously a strong point. For a big guy at 16 years old, to be that coordinated, it excited me."

Cerantola left Owen Sound with intentions of going back to camp in 2017 to secure a roster spot. He knew if he worked hard enough, he could do it. His father believed that to be true, too, but he didn't know if it was feasible if Cerantola kept playing baseball.

“Usually, in hockey, you train in the summer to get better for the winter," Franco said. "In baseball, it’s vice versa. He was missing the development stages in both sports. Therefore, we could see he was going to drop a sport.”

It wasn't the one Franco expected.

A change of plans

Eric Cerantola pitched for the Great Lake Canadians baseball club before arriving at Mississippi State. The program helped to develop him into a more refined pitcher. (Photo: Great Lake Canadians)

Just before Eric was drafted by the Attack, he started playing in the Great Lake Canadians baseball program. A coach there, Adam Stern — who had a 10-year professional baseball career — transitioned Cerantola into a full-time pitcher.

As Cerantola continually grew into his body, he had more success on the mound. His velocity got higher and higher, and the sets of eyes that saw what he was doing in the Great Lake program grew in number as a result.

In 2016, Cerantola was invited to participate in Tournament 12, an annual showcase hosted by the Toronto Blue Jays organization designed to give the top 150 amateur baseball players born in Canada visibility to pro scouts and college recruiters. It's deemed to be the most important event for Canadian amateurs hoping to have a career in baseball.

While at T12, Cerantola met Greg Hamilton, Baseball Canada's director of national teams. Hamilton told him he had a spot on Team Canada's Junior National Team if he wanted it. It wasn't until then that the Cerantola family viewed him as more of a baseball player than a hockey player.

“When you make a national team, it brings things into perspective," Franco said. "Now, instead of being one of the hundreds of kids competing, you’re one of the best 20 kids in Canada. That’s a lot different.”

Cerantola’s commitment to Mississippi State

Eric met somebody else at T12: Mississippi State pitching coach Gary Henderson.

Eric Cerantola committed to Mississippi State in July of 2017, roughly one year after he was selected in the eighth round of the 2016 Ontario Hockey League Draft. (Photo: Courtesy of Eric Cerantola)

Henderson, hired by MSU in June 2016, hopped on a jet bound for Toronto just before T12 started. He had some connections in Canada who mentioned Cerantola, and he wanted to see for himself what the young hurler had in his arsenal. Henderson said he was confident Cerantola was good enough to receive an offer from Mississippi State, but he went across the northern border to be sure of it.

“That’s what you do,” Henderson said. “That’s what the job is.”

Henderson had success recruiting in Canada prior to looking at Cerantola. He pulled now-New York Yankees pitcher James Paxton out of Canada to play for him while he was head coach at Kentucky. Paxton had 115 strikeouts in his final year at UK before turning pro. He spent the first six seasons of his Major League career in Seattle before arriving in New York.

In Cerantola, Henderson saw a pitcher whose fiery red hair was as hot as his fastball. He loved it, so much so that he made the trip to St. Petersburg, Florida, the following spring to watch Cerantola pitch as a member of the Canadian Junior National Team in the team's annual Spring Training trip. Cerantola pitched against MLB prospects from seven different organizations.

After assuring himself that Cerantola was worth the hype, Henderson had to get the Cerantola family to Starkville for an official visit. He knew that would seal the deal.

“Mississippi State is an easy sell if you’re talking to a baseball kid,” Henderson said. “There’s no real arm twisting or anything like that.”

Cerantola and his family visited the campus in July 2017. He committed later that month. He had to call DeGray to tell him he wouldn't be attending training camp that year. He had his mind made up on his athletic future, and it didn't include pucks and skates. It included baseballs and cleats.

“I never thought as a kid I’d make my way down to Mississippi to play baseball,” Eric said. "But here I am."

'He's going to be very good'

Cerantola was taken by the Tampa Bay Rays in the 30th round of the 2018 MLB Draft. He quickly announced he'd turn down that opportunity so he could play at State. He also continued playing for the Canadian national team after his commitment to MSU. He went on the team's Spring Training trip again in 2018. An outing against the Toronto Blue Jays epitomizes what his career has been like so far at Mississippi State.

Cerantola somehow did not allow an earned run despite walking five batters in twi innings. He had just enough in the tank to get out of bases loaded jams twice while giving up just one unearned run on a sacrifice fly. He retired then-blossoming pro prospect Vladimir Guerrero Jr. twice in the process. Guerrero Jr. has six home runs for the Jays at the MLB level this season.

"That's fun to look back on now," Cerantola said.

At State, Cerantola has appeared in 10 games with four starts and owns a 4.40 ERA. In two of the starts, he allowed zero runs in six combined innings. In the other two, he allowed a total of six runs in one combined inning. He appeared in one game in relief on April 3 after his last start on March 26 but then didn't pitch in game action again until May 14.

The man who recruited him doesn't think his absence from the mound is reason to worry.

“A freshman that has trouble getting a hit, or has trouble turning a double play or has trouble throwing strikes or getting outs, that’s not exactly news,” Henderson said. “That’s kind of how the game goes. You have to get acclimated and develop confidence and hone your skills and all the rest. I would anticipate that he is going to be very good.”

Cerantola still learning how to use his big frame on the mound

Current MSU pitching coach Scott Foxhall agrees with Henderson. But as much as Cerantola’s frame has aided in his athletic endeavors over the years, Foxhall believes it could have actually acted as a hindrance against some of the more refined hitters Cerantola has faced while on Team Canada and in college.

Foxhall compared Cerantola's situation to MLB pitching legend Randy Johnson's. Johnson stood at 6-foot-10 and 225 pounds. Foxhall said Johnson struggled with command in his early years as he tried to figure out how to pitch with a body as gangly as his. He thinks Cerantola is having some of those same issues in his freshman season at State.

“It took him a long time to figure out how to understand where his arms and legs were in space and be able to repeat his delivery," Foxhall said. "But once he did figure it out, he became one of the most dominant guys in history. I’m looking forward to that with Eric. I think he gets better each time out and gets more comfortable in his understanding about his body and how it works.”

Foxhall thinks Cerantola can be a three-pitch starter for the Bulldogs in future seasons. He described the fastball as a "head-turner," but he thinks Cerantola has big-league ability with the changeup and curveball as well.

While his big body might be holding him back a bit in the short-term, Cerantola is a pitcher who can eat up innings and go deep into outings because of his athletic history, Foxhall said.

"When he moves, it’s very efficient movements and very athletic movements," Foxhall said. "That’s helped him become a better pitcher.”

To be the best pitcher, Cerantola simply needs to become completely comfortable. Just as he believed he was on the cusp of making an OHL roster once he had the body type for it, Eric is on the verge of being an elite pitcher in the SEC once he has his mechanics down to a T.

Cerantola believes it. Foxhall believes it. And so too does the man responsible for putting him in a maroon and white jersey.

“Scott is going to do a great job with him,” Henderson said. “They’re going to win a lot of games with him on the mound. He’s got to stay healthy, that’s all part of it, but he’ll certainly pitch well at Mississippi State and have a chance to pitch beyond that.”

Contact Tyler Horka at thorka@gannett.com. Follow @tbhorka on Twitter. To read more of Tyler's work, subscribe to the Clarion Ledger today!