In a season that pitching and defense looked like the key to success, neither showed up in Saturday’s America East opener for Stony Brook University’s baseball team at Seawolves Field.

Errors and the long ball played costly to the Seawolves, as they were swept in both games of a doubleheader against the Vermont Catamounts, 14-4 and 12-8 respectively..

The first game of the double dip featured Vermont lefthander Derek Miller against Seawolves right-hander Anthony Stutz. Early on, Stutz brought some of his best stuff, striking out three and allowing no runs in the first two innings.

But in the third, Stutz began to crumble after Seawolves third baseman Rob Sandora threw the ball away on Catamount Jason Carey’s bunt.

The error scored Bobby Tewksberry from first, and was followed by Raymond Montanez’s triple that scored Carey to give the Catamounts an early 2-0 advantage.

The downward spiral continued for Stutz as he then walked Jeff Barry on four pitches, with Vermont slugger Nick Roberts on deck. On a 2-2 count, Robertsjacked a three run blast over the right field fence to give Vermont a 5-0 lead.But the bleeding didn’t stop there, as Vermont’s Barry Chamberland blasted a solo homerun of his own, to make the score 6-0 Vermont.

Vermont was in control the entire game. They opened the lead up to 10-0 inthe fifth inning, and won the first game 14-4. For the Catamounts, Derek Miller pitched five innings, allowing one run and three hits with nine strikeouts.

The second game of the doubleheader proved to be a little closer as the Seawolves jumped out to an 1-0 lead off of Ed Kull’s fourth homerun of the season.

Prior to Kull’s dinger, Andrew Zielinski rocketed a grounder down the third baseline, which appeared to be a fair ball. When home plate umpire called the ball foul, the Seawolves bench erupted, as well as the 40 Seawolve fans who attended.

Seawolves coach Matt Senk walked straight to the umpire’s face ahat brim to brim argument.

‘You’re telling me I have no clue,’ Senk shouted.

Senk was not ejected, but the feud proved to be a momentum swinger when Kull followed with his homerun.

The score remained at 1-0 until the third inning. Seawolves’ pitcher Kevin Willi began to unravel, just like Stutz in game one.

With Vermont getting two consecutive doubles to start the inning, the score was quickly knotted at one. But after a walk, and an error by shortstop Matt Devins, Vermont’s Nick Roberts blasted another three-run homerun to leftfield, giving the Catamounts a 5-1 edge.

Barry Chamberland followed with a solo shot in the third inning. Chamberlandand Roberts combined on back to back homeruns in the third innings of both games.

Coach Senk decided keep the reeling Willi in the game. He gave up eight of the nine Catamount runs scored in the third inning.

‘We went too long with Kevin,’ Senk said.

With the Catamounts once again up big after two and a half innings, Stony Brook bats came alive scoring three runs in the bottom half of the inning, highlighted by Ed Kull’s three run homer that gave him five on the season, and second of the game.

Both teams exchanged runs in the next two innings with Vermont ahead 12-6 after five innings. But the lead was too much for surging Seawolves’ bats, and the Catamounts walked away with a 12-8 victory, and a two game sweep of Stony Brook in the America East’s opening day.

In both games they committed seven errors, and gave up two disastrous innings that cost them the games.

‘We have to keep away from the big inning,’ Senk said. ‘I’m concerned with the whole pitching staff.’