The Stony Brook baseball team exploded for a season high in both hits and runs on Wednesday, defeating Sacred Heart 17-7 at Joe Nathan Field.
The Seawolves amassed 21 hits on the day, including three home runs and four doubles. Three of the doubles came off the bat of senior center fielder Andruw Gazzola, who had 4 RBIs on the day. Sophomore starting pitcher Sam Turcotte delivered a solid outing for Stony Brook, giving up one run in four innings of work and striking out four batters.
“This is a great start to the final homestand,” head coach Matt Senk said in a press release. “We did a terrific job offensively and continued to play good defense.”
The Pioneers jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the top of the first inning on senior right fielder Dan Schock’s RBI single. Stony Brook tied the game at 1 in the bottom half of the inning on senior third baseman Bobby Honeyman’s sacrifice fly.
The Seawolves broke the tie in the second inning on a two-run home run to left field by junior left fielder Brandon Alamo off freshman starting pitcher Thomas Pinto, giving them a 3-1 lead.
Stony Brook broke the game open with a seven-run third inning. Gazzola got things going with an RBI double to right field, scoring sophomore shortstop Nick Grande. Honeyman came up next and smashed a triple to right center field, plating Gazzola and extending the Stony Brook lead to 5-1.
A pair of two-run home runs by sophomore first baseman Chris Hamilton and sophomore right fielder Michael Wilson extended the lead to 9-1. Gazzola hit another RBI double in the third inning, giving the Seawolves a comfortable 10-1 lead.
A two-run home run to left field by Sacred Heart freshman catcher Trevor Fagan in the top of the fifth inning cut Stony Brook’s lead to 10-3. The Seawolves added a run in the bottom half of the inning on a Honeyman single to raise the score to 11-3.
The Pioneers scored four unanswered runs to cut the Seawolves lead to 11-7 after the top of the eighth inning. However, Stony Brook came up in the bottom half and put the game out of reach. Junior designated hitter Michael Russell started the scoring with an RBI single to left field, scoring Hamilton. Wilson then came up and smashed an RBI triple to left field, pushing the lead to 13-7. A pair of RBI singles by Grande and junior left fielder Dylan Resk made it a 15-7 game. Gazzola then laced a two-run double, giving the Seawolves a 17-7 lead after eight innings.
Senior pitcher Cole Creighton threw a scoreless ninth inning to give Stony Brook the win, moving their record to 24-19 on the season.
The Seawolves will continue their final homestand of the season when the Bryant University Bulldogs and UMass Minutemen come to visit this weekend. Stony Brook will face Bryant in a single game at 3 p.m. on both Friday and Sunday and play UMass at noon on Saturday in the Autism Awareness Game.
