June 4, 2012
Around the Regionals
Regional Capsules
Regional
Scores & Schedules
Expectations met
Stony Brook wins Coral Gables Regional
By David Furones
CollegeBaseballInsider.com
 CORAL
GABLES, Fla. –
If the 2012 regular season’s winningest team came into the Coral
Gables Regional to make a statement that it was underrated as a
No. 4 seed, it certainly did so.
With a
4-for-5 night from William Carmona and an inspirational
performance from its ace Tyler Johnson, who was pitching on two
days’ rest, Stony Brook knocked off No. 2 seed UCF 10-6 Monday
night to become Regional champ and advance to face LSU Friday in
the Super Regionals.
Josh
Mason got Alex Friedrich to ground out to short to make the game
final and bring his teammates rushing onto the field like
fanatical electronics customers charging into a Best Buy at 4
a.m. on Black Friday.
If you
ask SBU coach Matt Senk, the end result of the Regional did not
surprise him one bit.
“Our
expectations ended up coming to fruition,” said Senk, whose
Seawolves became the first No. 4 seed to advance into a Super
Regional since Fresno State in 2008. “We came in thinking that
we could win this Regional.”
Stony
Brook (50-12) will book its flight to Baton Rouge, La., after
finishing the Regional with a 4-1 record and defeating the team
that gave it its only loss two nights in a row. The Seawolves
now have won 26 of their past 28 games and gone 35-4 since April
1.
 Carmona
(left), SBU’s slugging third baseman,
fell a triple shy of the cycle, drove in three runs and scored
two more at Alex Rodriguez Park.
“[Carmona] is one of the best hitters that I’ve ever been
around,” Senk said. “He has power from both sides of the plate.
It’s scary how hard he can hit a baseball.”
The
Regional’s Most Outstanding Player finished hitting .523 (11 for
21) with two home runs and 10 RBI.
Johnson, after earning the win Friday night against Miami,
finished the game throwing 119 pitches in 6.1 innings, allowing
four runs off eight hits and striking out five Knights (45-17).
“When
you get to this point in the year, it’s mostly adrenaline,”
Johnson said. “By this point you’re doing it more for the guys
next to you than you’re doing it for yourself. I’m very tired
right now, but I’ll tell you it’s a great feeling anyway.”
“Absolutely tremendous performance,” Senk added. “He exceeded
what my expectations were… It seemed like Tyler got a second
wind and got an adrenaline rush and really started throwing his
best from the fourth inning on.”
Mason
closed things out for Stony Brook, pitching the final 2.2
innings giving up two runs off two hits and striking out three.
Like
the Seawolves have done time and time again in this Regional, a
big offensive inning propelled them to victory. This time it
came in the form of a five-run fourth inning.
Carmona highlighted the inning with his
two-run double with the bases loaded that tied the game at 3. He
later came in to score the fifth and final run that frame on a
Kevin Krause knock up the middle.
“When
you have an offense like ours, I think eventually things start
to roll,” Carmona said. “It just happened in one inning, and
from that point on, we didn’t stop scoring. That’s how you have
to win games.”
Stony
Brook added two more the very next inning when Pat Cantwell
drove two runners home with a solid single to center, and then
manufactured two more in the sixth to make it a 9-3 game.
UCF
starter Brian Adkins cruised through the first three innings,
but everything fell apart for him in the five-run Stony Brook
fourth. He didn’t make it through the frame and suffered the
loss with four earned runs off four hits and five walks over 3.1
innings.
 The
Knights did the early scoring Monday. D.J. Hicks (left), who finished 2
for 4 with two home runs and three RBI, stroked a two-run shot
out to right-center in the top of the first off Johnson to give
UCF the early 2-0 advantage.
Hicks
crossed home plate again in the third to make it 3-0. He led the
inning off with a walk, worked his way over to third and scored
on a Jeramy Matos base hit through the left side of the infield.
“It
felt great,” UCF coach Terry Rooney said of the 3-0 start. “I
thought we had some quality at-bats early in the game. I
certainly felt that going into the game, with how well Stony
Brook was swinging the bat, that it was going to take a bunch of
runs today to get the job done.”
UCF’s
JoMarcos Woods lifted a two-run home run to right, the first of
his collegiate career, in the eighth to try to ignite a Knight
comeback, but UCF could not do anything else against Mason.
Game
Notes
· It
was quite a night for Travis Jankowski. He went 1 for 4 at the
plate, but even bigger for him, he was drafted 44th overall in
the MLB Draft.
· In
the first inning, UCF pitcher Brian Adkins was taunting Carmona
after getting him to pop out to left. On the incident, Carmona
said, “Words were exchanged. I’m not sure what he said exactly,
but it was just a heat-of-the-moment type of thing and it just
escalated and it out of control for a few seconds.” The umpires
brought the two coaches together after the exchange and told the
teams to knock it off.
· Adkins
expressed similar sentiments saying, “I chalk it up as just
being baseball.”
· Things
were heated throughout between the two teams, and several UCF
players came out onto the field during SBU’s postgame
celebration. Cooler heads ultimately prevailed and the two teams
exchanged ceremonial handshakes after the final.
· Rooney
shook things up in the lineup once again Monday night. He
inserted JoMarcos Woods into the eight-hole and benched Nick
Carrillo, who was hitting .091 in the regional. Woods ended up
homering.
· Carmona,
who also played the role of closer for the Seawolves last
season, was warming up in the bullpen before the ninth inning.
Senk said he was 60/40 in favor of not bringing him in if he had
to, but he was glad he ultimately didn’t have to make that
decision.
(photos courtesy of SBU & UCF Media
Relations Offices) |
