CALIFORNIA (May 3) – The California (PA) baseball program honored one of its greats last week with the presentation of the 17th Bruce Dal Canton Pitching Award, which is given to a Vulcan hurler who truly exemplifies greatness of character. The award is in memory of Dal Canton, who passed away in 2008 from esophageal cancer.

Freshman Evan Stranko was named the recipient of the Bruce Dal Canton Pitching Award in 2026. He finished the regular season with a 3-2 record and three saves over 18 relief appearances. Stranko has posted a 1.50 ERA over 30.0 innings pitched this spring and allowed only one extra-base hit while facing over 130 batters.

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).