Stony Brook’s Cinderella story came to an end on Sunday when the Seawolves lost to Florida State by a score of 12-2. It was the Seawolves’ second loss in the College World Series, which knocked them out of the tournament. This was the first time the team lost two games in a row since a double header at Holy Cross on March 25.
Florida State will move on to play the winner of UCLA and Arizona on Tuesday. As for the Seawolves, the team finished 52-15 and went 0-2 in the College World Series. “It’s a hard loss, but I look back on the season, and I think we did what no one thought we could ever do, what everyone thought was basically impossible,” junior William Carmona said. “And we made it happen somehow and I’ll never forget that.”
Before the College World Series started, the team was in the media nationwide, and Stony Brook was even was a stop search on Google. The team whose goal was to “shock the nation” entered the playoffs after winning the America East Conference. It won three straight games against Maine, Binghamton and Maine again to advance into the regionals.
At the Coral Gables Regional, the Seawolves defeated Miami by a score of 10-2 for their second ever NCAA Tournament victory. The team then lost to Central Florida 9-8 after rallying from an early five-run deficit. With the team facing elimination, sophomore Frankie Vanderka threw 6.2 innings of relief for the victory.
The team then needed to win two games against Central Florida to advance to its first ever Super Regional game. It did just thatby defeating UCF 12-5 and 10-6 in consecutive days.
In the Baton Rouge Super Regional, the team showed its true colors, rallying from a tough Game One loss to win the next two games in Alex Box Stadium. The first game was Stony Brook’s to win all game, but the Tigers tied it in the bottom of the ninth inning. Stony Brook went up 3-2 in the top of the tenth inning, but LSU tied it once again. The Seawolves scored another run in the top of the eleventh inning, but LSU once again tied it. Then the rain came and delayed the game into the next day.
The Tigers proved to be too much for the Seawolves, as they won that game in the bottom of the twelfth inning. Stony Brook didn’t give up, however, and came back for the second game, which was just 50 minutes after the continuation. Johnson threw a three-hitter and the teams met again in a deciding game three.
Vanderka pitched game three and gave up only two runs on three hits, and the Seawolves won 7-2. With that win, they became just the second No. 4 seed to reach the College World Series since the 1999 expansion. Stony Brook also became the first Northeast Region School to advance since 1987.
Besides advancing this far, the team also had a team-high seven players drafted. It was headlined by junior Travis Jankowski, who was taken 44th overall by the San Diego Padres. Senior Pat Cantwell was taken in the third round, 125th overall by the Texas Rangers. Also taken in the 2012 MLB Draft were junior Maxx Tissenbaum (San Diego Padres); junior William Carmona (Philadelphia Phillies) in the 11th round; junior James Campbell (Los Angeles Dodgers) in the 12th round; junior Jasvir Rakkar (Chicago Cubs) in the 26th round; and senior Tyler Johnson (Oakland Athletics) in the 33rd round.
Stony Brook also leads the nation in wins with 52 and is the only current program to reach 50 wins this season. Jankowski led the nation with 110 hits and Carmona finished tied for sixth with 101.
