CALIFORNIA (May 4) – The California (PA) baseball program honored one of its former greats this weekend with the presentation of the 16th Bruce Dal Canton Pitching Award, which is given to a Vulcan hurler who truly exemplifies greatness of character. The award is in the memory of Dal Canton, who passed away in 2008 from esophageal cancer.

Juniors Jake Kramer and Michael Valente were co-recipients of the Bruce Dal Canton Pitching Award in 2025. This is the second time in the history of the award in which multiple pitchers received the honor.

Kramer joins Randy Sturgill (2010-11), Jack Dennis (2014-16) and Nick Riggle (2019, 2021) as the only pitchers to earn the accolade multiple times in a career. This week, he broke the all-time Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) record with 26 saves. Kramer boasts a 3-0 record and 10 saves with a 2.20 ERA over 32.2 innings pitched this season.

A native of Greensburg, Kramer has posted a 10-1 record with 26 saves during his career. He holds a 1.66 ERA over 86.2 innings pitched while recording 82 strikeouts in 56 appearances.

Valente tied Sturgill (2011) for the single-season school record with 10 victories this week. He holds a 10-0 record and a 2.31 ERA over 58.1 innings pitched with 52 strikeouts this spring.

A 6-foot-0 junior, Valente boasts an 18-4 career record behind a 15-3 mark over his two seasons as a starter. He has logged 145.2 innings pitched over 36 appearances with a 3.34 ERA and 100 strikeouts in his career.

Dal Canton was a charter member of the Vulcan Athletic Hall of Fame in 1995 and spent over 30 seasons in professional baseball as both a player and coach. A native of Pittsburgh, he made his major league debut in 1967 with the Pittsburgh Pirates before retiring in 1977. He appeared in more than 300 games during his career while playing with four organizations: Pittsburgh Pirates, Kansas City Royals, Atlanta Braves and Chicago White Sox.

Following his playing career, Dal Canton worked with the Atlanta Braves as both a minor league and major league pitching coach. While with the Braves, he coached more than 30 future major leaguers, including National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees John Smoltz and Tom Glavine. Dal Canton spent the last 10 seasons of his career as a pitching coach with the Myrtle Beach Pelicans, the former Advanced A-affiliate of the Braves (currently the Single-A affiliate of the Chicago Cubs).