It was a demoralizing senior day for the Stony Brook baseball team, who suffered another pair of losses it could not afford.
In their final act at Joe Nathan Field for the year, the Seawolves (24-25, 12-12 CAA) lost two out of three games to the Delaware Blue Hens (27-22, 14-10 CAA) this past weekend. Stony Brook won the series opener on Friday 3-2 before dropping the middle game 9-6 on Saturday. In the rubber match on Sunday, nothing went right, culminating in a 10-5 loss and a series defeat.
Around the Coastal Athletic Association (CAA), the Seawolves received just enough help to stay in the playoff picture for now. Seventh-place Hofstra lost two out of three games to the University of North Carolina Wilmington, keeping Stony Brook one game ahead of its crosstown rivals in the standings.
However, William & Mary took two of three against Towson to overlap the Seawolves for fifth place. Stony Brook is now sixth in the CAA, which is good enough for the final spot in the postseason. However, it has third-place Northeastern left to play with just a one-game lead over the Pride, who will host second-to-last-place Monmouth next weekend.
Disappointed by his team’s performance, head coach Matt Senk stressed the urgency of a quick turnaround once his squad gets to Boston.
“The biggest thing I tell them is that any team that I’ve had that has gone on to do well in a tournament played their best at the end,” Senk said in a postgame interview with The Statesman. “Let’s make the most of the Northeastern series, let’s create some momentum, let’s get some wins and then that’ll carry into the tournament. You’re playing with house money then and we’ll see what happens, but we’ve got to get back to playing better than this; we’re better than this.”
As they have been all year, starting pitcher Colin Rhein and relief pitcher Erik Paulsen were bigtime for the Seawolves on Friday in their lone win. Rhein allowed just two runs on five hits while striking out two over 6 ⅓ innings pitched. Paulsen took over from there and faced the minimum with one strikeout over 2 ⅔ hitless innings to earn the eight-out save.
After being thrust into the one-starter role once starting pitcher Eddie Smink went down, Rhein has not felt any added pressure.
“It doesn’t really change anything,” Rhein said. “You just go out there and it has the same feel for me. So what that it’s on Friday? It feels amazing to deliver for my team in any way I can. We’ve come a long way, huge series; I’m just doing anything I can to give my guys a shot.”
As for Paulsen, he got Delaware’s hitters to do exactly what he wanted en route to his sixth save of the year.
“I just like to live down in the zone to get ground balls because I trust my fielders behind me,” Paulsen said. “That’s about it. All of my pitches were working and they weren’t hitting them well.”
Stony Brook did not board a baserunner until the bottom of the fourth inning when center fielder Cam Santerre slapped a single the other way and Paulsen dragged a bunt against the shift. Now with two men on base and one out, left fielder Matt Brown-Eiring smoked a double off the wall in right field to drive in Santerre.
With two outs in the bottom of the fifth inning, third baseman Evan Fox pulled a double down the left-field line and came around to score when Santerre lined a single into right. The Blue Hens kept the shift on for Paulsen, and once again he made them pay, as he blasted a double into deep left-center field to bring home Santerre and make it 3-0.
Santerre — who struck out on a steady diet of fastballs in his first at-bat — was able to set the table for his team by making an in-game adjustment.
“My first AB, I was getting blown away by fastballs and I wasn’t being aggressive,” Santerre said. “My next AB, I got to two strikes and I just spread my feet out and just tried to throw my hands out at anything over the plate. My third at-bat, it was the same thing.”
In the top of the sixth inning, Delaware got on the board with back-to-back doubles from shortstop Brett Lesher and center fielder Bryce Greenly to lead off the inning. After a groundout advanced Greenly, third baseman Joey Loynd drove in the second and final run for the Blue Hens with a sacrifice fly to cut the lead to just one run.
Rhein escaped further trouble and then got the first out in the top of the seventh inning before giving way to Paulsen, and the rest was history.
The win made Stony Brook a fourth-place team for a day, but then Saturday came and that timeframe became short-lived.
Game two started off perfectly for the Seawolves, as first baseman Brett Paulsen grounded a single up the middle to drive in Erik Paulsen in the bottom of the first inning. On the play, Greenly tried to throw Brown-Eiring out at third base, but his toss from center field went up the line, allowing a second run to score. However, in the top of the second, Delaware designated hitter Aiden Stewart doubled in a run off starting pitcher J.T. Raab to make it 2-1.
Greenly’s rough day in center field continued in the bottom of the second inning, as he booted a ball in the gap after a bloop single by catcher Ryan Micheli to allow second baseman Johnny Pilla to score. Two innings later, Pilla pulled a double into the right-field corner to chase home shortstop Matt Miceli and go up 4-1.
Trouble for Stony Brook started to brew in the top of the fifth inning when Greenly redeemed himself with a titanic two-run home run onto Circle Road to make it a one-run game. Raab escaped further trouble from the Blue Hens, but he issued a leadoff double in the next frame to right fielder Aaron Graeber, causing Senk to call upon relief pitcher Brendan Pattermann. The move came back to bite the Seawolves, as second baseman Chris Dengler greeted Pattermann by crushing his first pitch over the left-center field wall to give Delaware a 5-4 lead.
Stony Brook gave an immediate response, as in the home half of the sixth inning, Pilla sparked a two-out rally by wearing a pitch off the wrist. A walk to Micheli and a balk gave right fielder Matty Wright two runners in scoring position with two outs. Wright got jammed and rolled one slowly over to Lesher and beat his throw by diving head first into first base. Pilla and Micheli both scored on the play, with the second run crossing courtesy of a throwing error by first baseman Eric Ludman.
Now leading 6-5, Pattermann tossed a scoreless top of the seventh inning. He stayed out there for the top of the eighth and retired the leadoff hitter before issuing three-straight singles, the third of which was a game-tying hit from left fielder Andrew Amato.
Relief pitcher Ty Stout came on in relief of him and the Blue Hens peppered him, as they took an 8-6 lead with back-to-back run-scoring singles from catcher Tyler Leach and Stewart. After getting the second out, Stout surrendered another run batted in (RBI) single, this time to Greenly to put the Seawolves in a three-run hole.
Delaware relief pitcher Anthony Gubitosi retired six of the next seven hitters to complete an 11-out save and slam the door on Stony Brook, tying the series up.
In a game that would have clinched the series for the Seawolves, Senk was unhappy with his team’s late-game performance.
“To jump out to a decent lead only to give it up and then come back and take the lead again … and then to give that up is tough,” Senk said. “They’re a good offensive team and we knew we had to avoid the big inning. We gave up home runs, we gave up the big inning and that’s why we’re kind of where we’re at.”
Game three was a disaster for Stony Brook, starting with a three-run blast by Loynd in the top of the third inning off starting pitcher Ty Saunders. Saunders then walked Graeber, who came around to score from first base on an opposite-field double by Dengler to put the Seawolves in a four-run hole. In the next frame, Saunders issued a leadoff walk and was promptly pulled in favor of relief pitcher Nick Rizzo, who retired his first two hitters before Ludman lined an RBI double off him to make it 5-0.
In the top of the fifth inning, with two runners on and one out, Leach pulled a single through the left side before Stewart followed with an RBI baseknock of his own. Lesher then lifted a sacrifice fly to center field to grow the Blue Hens’ lead to eight runs. Rizzo settled down afterwards and tossed perfect sixth and seventh innings.
In the top of the eighth inning, Rizzo hurt himself by walking the leadoff hitter. After that, Lesher bounced a comebacker to Rizzo to set up an easy double play, but he bounced the throw to second base and Miceli could not handle it. A groundout by Greenly set up a sacrifice fly for Ludman, putting Stony Brook behind by nine runs.
In the bottom of the eighth inning, some baseball romance occurred. With two men on and one away, Fox blasted a three-run homer inside the left-field foul pole in his final career at-bat at Nathan. Three batters later, with Pilla on first base and two outs, Brown-Eiring got under one to deep left-center field and it carried out for a two-run dinger in what will also be his last-ever at-bat in the Seawolves’ home yard.
Now trailing just 9-5 and hoping for a miracle, Senk sent relief pitcher Quinlan Montgomery to the mound for the top of the ninth inning, but he gave up an RBI single to Leach to put it out of reach. No more storybook endings occurred in the bottom of the ninth, as Delaware relief pitcher Eli Atiya tossed a zero to end things.
There was palpable devastation in the Stony Brook dugout and in the fan section, but nobody was bothered more than Senk.
“It’s unfortunate that we were playing so well when we won eight of nine conference games, but since then, we just haven’t played well enough to get a series win,” Senk said. “That’s on us.”
The Seawolves’ bats were silent for most of the day, as they totaled only two hits through the first seven innings on Sunday. The Blue Hens’ game-three starter — right-handed pitcher Dom Velazquez — entered the game with a 6.11 earned run average (ERA) and a 1.90 walks and hits per innings pitched over just 10 ⅓ frames of work. However, he tossed five scoreless innings with just one hit and one walk on only 48 pitches while striking out two.
Relief pitcher Christian Colmery followed by allowing just a hit and a walk over two scoreless innings on 22 pitches despite entering the game with a 6.30 ERA over 20 innings.
Pilla was the team’s best bat over the weekend, as he went 4-for-11 with a double, an RBI, three runs scored and a hit-by-pitch. Santerre went 3-for-9 with one RBI, three runs, two stolen bases, two walks and two hit-by-pitches. Erik Paulsen went 3-for-10 with two doubles, drove in one run, scored another and got hit by two pitches. Micheli went 3-for-9 with two walks and scored once.
Brown-Eiring was the only Stony Brook player to hit safely in all three games, going 3-for-12 with a double, a homer, three RBIs and two runs.
If the Seawolves are to make the 2024 CAA baseball tournament, they will need to handle their own against the Northeastern Huskies up in Boston at the end of next week. With the tournament looming, the three-game set is scheduled to begin on Thursday at 3 p.m. The Huskies are 34-15 this year and 15-9 in conference play after losing two of three to Charleston this past weekend. They will face Stony Brook’s former America East rival — the University of Massachusetts Lowell — on Tuesday before the series commences.
