In a game where nearly the entire Stony Brook baseball team saw the field, one bench player stood out above the rest.
In their return to Joe Nathan Field on Tuesday, the Seawolves (11-15, 3-6 CAA) won a competitive midweek game 6-5 over the Manhattan Jaspers. Head coach Matt Senk made a concerted effort to get bench players some action, rotating in 16 position players and seven different pitchers.
Of the 23 Seawolves who saw action, first baseman Jason Campo made the biggest impact. After collecting the go-ahead two-RBI double against Iona last week, Campo’s history repeated itself. With the game tied 4-4 in the bottom of the seventh inning, Senk had Campo pinch hit for first baseman Brett Paulsen with two outs, and the move paid dividends.
Campo ripped one down the left-field line to drive in a pair and put Stony Brook on top 6-4. After that, Campo finished the game at first base and helped his team lock down the win.
Campo is now 6-for-13 this year, good for a .462 batting average. As a pinch hitter, he is 4-for-6 with two doubles, a triple and three RBIs. He attributed his success off the bench to the simplicity of his approach.
“Whenever I get up there, I just try not to do too much,” Campo said in an interview with The Statesman. “Just stay through the middle, hit the ball hard and just pick up my teammates in that situation.”
After the previous two batters failed to drive in the runner from third with less than two outs, Campo’s hit bailed them out. Campo noted that the team must get better before its next challenge this upcoming weekend.
“It feels good to pick up my team when we needed a big hit, but we still have a lot of work to do with a good William & Mary team coming in,” Campo said.
In the top of the eighth inning, relief pitcher Brendan Pattermann made his first appearance since March 5 and tossed a scoreless inning on just 10 pitches. He allowed just a single to Manhattan third baseman Trevor Hansen before stranding him.
In the top of the ninth inning, Senk turned to left-handed relief pitcher Eric Foster, who recorded just the second save of his four-year NCAA career. However, things got dicey in the inning for Foster, who allowed a run to score to make it a one-run game.
After surrendering a two-out single to put the tying run on base, Foster struck out Manhattan’s cleanup hitter, second baseman Daniel Perez, to end it.
The win improved Stony Brook to 5-0 in midweek games this year. The team went 3-7 in midweeks last year, including 0-2 against Manhattan. Senk said that the improvement has come from an increased emphasis on these types of games.
“We were very disappointed in how we played midweeks last year,” Senk said. “We’ve made a much stronger emphasis on being better in midweeks and we’ve done a good job of that, including playing [Manhattan] today.”
Stony Brook had several other good performances, but not too many of them came from the bench players. Designated hitter Shane Paradine hit the ball hard three times, finishing the game 2-for-4 with a double off the wall, an RBI and a run scored.
Paradine has nine hits over his last 16 at-bats. After hitting into plenty of hard outs earlier in the year, Paradine said that it is nice to see some luck go his way.
“I think it’s just baseball — it comes and goes,” Paradine said. “I stuck to what I was doing, hitting balls hard and eventually they’ve got to fall sometime.”
Along with Paradine, third baseman Evan Giordano had a good day at the plate. He batted leadoff for the first time this season and went 2-for-3 with two doubles, a walk, an RBI and three runs scored. Left fielder Matt Brown-Eiring put together a couple of productive at-bats as well, going 1-for-3 with two RBIs.
Relief pitcher Kyle Johnson earned his first win of the year by pitching a scoreless seventh inning. During his one inning of work, he allowed just a softly-hit single into center field while striking out one batter.
Stony Brook will remain at Joe Nathan Field for a three-game series with the William & Mary Tribe this upcoming weekend. The Tribe are 19-11 this year and 5-4 in Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) games. They are coming off a 13-3 win at Maryland on Tuesday. The first pitch for game one is scheduled for 3 p.m.
