03-01-21

The Statesman Special Issue

2021 Spring Sports Preview

FALL SPORTS RETURN TO THE FIELD IN UNUSUAL SPRING 2021 SEASON

BY ETHAN TAM

Kenneth P. LaValle Stadium will rarely see a quiet moment over the next few months, with five different teams set to occupy the turf in one season. Such is the reality of the Spring 2021 semester, an unprecedented schedule in which both fall and spring sports are holding their seasons at the same time.

Football was the first sport to postpone its fall season in July, when the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) suspended competition. The remainder of Stony Brook’s fall teams, who compete in the America East, followed days later.

The logistics of using the same facility for so many different sports at once presents its own challenges, especially on days such as March 20, when LaValle Stadium is scheduled to host a 12 p.m. football game versus Maine followed up by a 5 p.m. women’s lacrosse contest against Albany. That’s not including the 1 p.m. women’s soccer game with NJIT the following day.

No spectators have been allowed at Stony Brook athletic events yet in the 2020-2021 academic year, a decision that began with the empty seats inside Island Federal Arena during basketball season and has continued since.

However, Director of Athletics Shawn Heilbron recently hinted at the return of fan attendance.

“Our intent is to have fans as soon as possible and will share details once finalized,” he said on Twitter.

Football, the most attended of Stony Brook’s sports, makes its return to the gridiron on March 6 at home against Villanova. The team will play a six-game regular season against other teams in the CAA North division, trying to rebound from losing six of the last seven games of last season and missing the Football Champion Subdivision playoffs for the first time since 2016.

Still led by redshirt-senior quarterback Tyquell Fields, who nearly broke the program single-season passing yards record in 2019, the Stony Brook football team replenished its receiving corps by nabbing Football Bowl Subdivision transfers such as graduate wide receiver Hunter Hayek from Rutgers, redshirt-freshman tight end Tyler Devera from Maryland and redshirt-junior wide receiver Khalil Newton from Ball State.

The Seawolves return 12 starters from last season, including AllConference names ranging from redshirt-junior offensive lineman Kyle Nunez to redshirt-senior defensive lineman Sam Kamara and redshirtsenior defensive back Augie Contressa.

Defending their title is the most important goal for the Stony Brook women’s soccer team, the reigning America East champions. In Tobias Bischof ’s first year as head coach, he led the Seawolves to a program record-tying 14 wins and a trip to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Tournament. Although Stony Brook fell to No. 4 seeded Penn State in the opening round, the team scored a goal in the NCAA Tournament for the first time.

Stony Brook brings back its biggest offensive weapon with graduate forward Alyssa Francese returning. She led the team with 12 goals in 2019 and is currently tied for fourth on the program’s all-time goals list.

Sophomore goalkeeper Emerson Richmond-Burke will look to fill the hole left by the graduation of two-time America East Goalkeeper of the Year Sofia Manner, who recorded nine shutouts last season.

On the men’s side, Stony Brook seeks redemption after finishing in last place in the America East in 2019. Winning just one conference match and averaging less than one goal per contest, the team also lost their top scorer Jarred Dass to graduation. Dass was the lone player on the Stony Brook roster who scored more than one goal during the entire 2019 campaign.

In the Seawolves’ season opener at No. 21-ranked St. John’s, the offense came solely from players making their collegiate debuts. Freshman midfielder Trevor Harrison and freshman forward Aki Solvason both put the ball in the back of the net in a 4-2 loss.

The Stony Brook volleyball team is the lone sport this season that calls Pritchard Gymnasium its home. After winning back-to-back America East championships in 2017 and 2018, the Seawolves held a losing record for the first time in head coach Kristin Belzung’s tenure and barely scraped into the conference playoffs, where they lost in the first round.

After the graduation of last season’s top three kill leaders on the team, the current volleyball roster is youth-driven, with only one senior and two juniors. Through the first three matches of 2021, freshman outside hitters Lauren Schmitz and Leoni Kunz lead Stony Brook in kills with 25 and 24, respectively. Senior libero Kiani Kerstetter, the most experienced player on the roster, won America East Defensive Specialist of the Year in 2019.

Having last played together in over a year, the fall sports teams each have something to prove as they make their long-awaited return.

VETERAN-LED STONY BROOK BASEBALL PICKED TO RETURN TO CHAMPIONSHIP GLORY

BY ETHAN TAM

Head coach Matt Senk believes the world never got a chance to see the Stony Brook baseball team at its best last season.

“I was really happy with the way we were pitching and playing defense,” Senk said in an interview with The Statesman. “That being said, we still weren't where we wanted to be offensively. When we came home and had our five-game homestand, the bats started coming around. We had all three things clicking, getting ready to go into our first conference weekend.”

The season was canceled before conference play could begin. Stony Brook went 6-9 in the abbreviated 2020 campaign but won four of their final games. A year later, the Seawolves — still the most recent America East champions — are projected to finish first in the conference again by the preseason coaches' poll.

Concerns about the team’s offense remain as Stony Brook batters combined to slash .200/.280/.276 in 2020, averaging just 3.1 runs per game.

“I hope that we’re not going to get off to as slow a start,” Senk remarked. “The guys are a year older, a year maturer … I think all of those things will work to our advantage that our offense will be better and stronger.”

The biggest name in the Seawolves’ lineup remains graduate first baseman Chris Hamilton, who is one of the top 150 Division I hitters in 2020. Following the season's abrupt end, Hamilton relocated to Florida to prepare for the Major League Baseball draft as a likely selection. When the 2020 draft was cut from 40 rounds to five, he decided to return to Stony Brook with his extra year of eligibility.

“My plan to come back here for this fifth season was to win another championship,” Hamilton said in an interview with The Statesman. “It’s not really about myself going out and trying to improve my draft stock.”

Junior infielder Evan Giordano was arguably the Seawolves’ most effective hitter in 2020, beginning the year on a 10-game hitting streak and reaching base in all 15 games.

After being limited with hamstring issues in 2019, he broke out in his sophomore season with a .368 average and two home runs.

“I really just focused on my mental game,” Giordano said about the adjustments he made in an interview with The Statesman. “Obviously, taking a lot of reps in the cages and everything, but just working on being okay with failure. It’s a game of failure. Taking every at-bat as a new at-bat and every game as a new game.”

Hamilton, along with the other “super seniors,” bring a strong veteran presence to the locker room, which Senk and his players agree is important when it comes to competing for a title.

“A bunch of guys who came back have experienced a championship before,” Hamilton said. “The experience definitely helps a lot, and being able to pass along the different things that we've been through … will help us out in the long run.”

In addition to the returners, Stony Brook brings in a notable recruiting class listed by Collegiate Baseball as among the top in the nation. Of the incoming freshmen, Senk noted that pitchers Shane Helmstadt and Brendan Pattermann have stood out while infielder Evan Fox swung the bat well in the fall.

Needing to adapt to the pandemic, the America East split the conference into two divisions for 2021, with each team now playing home-and-home series against divisional opponents and a singular series against non-divisional opponents. Each individual series consists of four games, held over two consecutive days of doubleheaders.

“Staying prepared, getting those reps in during the week in the cages with the team is, I’d say, our biggest goal here – to get ready,” Giordano said about the altered scheduling format.

Conference series being four games instead of three makes having a fourth pitcher all the more crucial, and Senk already has his rotation set. Senior Jared Milch, graduate Sam Turcotte and redshirt-senior Brian Herrmann make up the top three, with junior Nick DeGennaro in line as the fourth starter once conference play begins.

The current rotation gives DeGennaro time to build himself back up as a reliever during the non-conference schedule. The right-hander shone in 2020 with a 1.42 ERA over 12.2 innings pitched before his season ended after two starts due to an elbow injury.

“Probably the thing you would think would be a little behind would be his breaking ball, but he's shown a plus breaking ball and his velocity is right there,” Senk said.

DeGennaro’s scheduled Tommy John surgery in March was halted as New York hospitals suspended elective procedures due to COVID-19, leading him to treat the tear with platelet-rich plasma injections and rehab instead. His path back to the mound faced more obstacles after a vertebrae fracture in the fall and a shoulder impingement in the winter.

“Right now, I feel 100%,” DeGennaro said in an interview with The Statesman. “I’m ready to go.”

Stony Brook’s schedule is strictly regional this season and foregoes the usual trip to southern schools that comprise the early non-conference slate. A previously scheduled series with the Michigan Wolverines, held at the New York Mets’ spring training site in Port St. Lucie, Florida, was called off.

“It’s nice to go out there against an ACC team and prove that, just because we're from the north and they're from the south, doesn't mean they're going to go out there and walk all over us,” DeGennaro said about last year’s trip to Clemson, where he held the Tigers to zero earned runs over 5.2 innings.

The Seawolves have their eye on ending the season the same way they did in 2019, and many of the faces in the dogpile at Binghamton remain on the roster, looking to be crowned one more time.

EXPECTATIONS HIGH AS FIFTH-YEAR STARS GUIDE SOFTBALL AFTER SHORTENED SEASON

BY JEREMY PORTNOY

Over the past few years, the Stony Brook softball team has accomplished nearly everything there is to accomplish — broken records, deep playoff runs, individual accolades — but the one thing that has eluded them since 2013 is a championship ring.

With a core group of players that ranks among the program’s best ever set to depart after this season, there’s some added pressure to win a title this year.

Fittingly, the Seawolves are early favorites to earn the ring. In an America East preseason poll, five out of six rival coaches predicted the Seawolves would win the conference. But head coach Megan Bryant isn’t scared of the hype.

“They say pressure is a privilege,” Bryant said. “We’ve got a unique group with our five grad students back… and I think that’s going to be a difference maker.”

Those five graduate students — pitcher and two-time America East Player of the Year Melissa Rahrich, outfielder Jourdin Hering, catcher Jordyn Nowakowski, infielder Riley Craig and outfielder Alina Lance — are certainly in a unique position. Because COVID-19 ended their 2020 season after just 14 games, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) allowed them to return for a fifth year.

That extra time gives them an added level of experience, and it’s also tightened their friendship.

“This fifth year has only made us come a little bit closer,” Hering said.

“I definitely think that there’s a huge advantage with the five of us on the field, and you can tell that we do really well together.”

As Rahrich explains, that bond only adds to the team’s drive to win a championship.

“That ring is what’s going to do it for us,” she said. “Especially for the people that I’ve been with since freshman year.”

That bond also helped the team thrive during the most unusual offseason in NCAA history.

“We weren’t able to go out and play other teams,” Lance said. “We had to play each other and we had to force each other to be better.”

The Seawolves’ identity has long been their pitching, and that seems unlikely to change given their talent at the position. Senior pitcher Dawn Bodrug, who led the America East last year with an eye-popping 0.74 ERA, is preparing for her first full season with the team. Together with Rahrich, she’s one half of the best pitching duo in the conference.

Both have sky-high ceilings, and the team will shine if they can reach those ceilings often.

Of course, none of that is to suggest that the Seawolves don’t have reliable bats. Hering played some of the best softball of her career in 2020, easily leading the team with a .431 average.

Rahrich was stellar as always, driving in 13 runs while launching three of the team’s six home runs. Junior infielder Nicole McCarvill, a rising star who broke out with a 4-for-4 hitting performance last March against Iona, rounds out the top of the lineup.

Stony Brook also brought in a large freshman class this offseason, with nine players set to make their debut. Their potential already has team veterans buzzing.

“They’re all pretty well-rounded. They build off of each other… and they make us better,” Hering said.

After beginning the season with a 4-0 series sweep at the Winthrop Kickoff Tournament in South Carolina, Stony Brook has proven that the conference is theirs to win. Rahrich already has three home runs, and Bodrug has already pitched a shutout.

With all those stars, it’s hard not to think of what could have been last year. But rather than dwell on the past, the Seawolves are using that lost season as motivation to fuel this one.

“We built on a lot from last year,” Lance said. “We have our entire starting lineup, everybody came back this year, so we are continuing to get better.”

KENNEDY AND OHLMILLER RETURN IN SEARCH OF STONY BROOK WOMEN’S LACROSSE’S NATIONAL TITLE

BY RYAN MAGILL

“We were having a great year,” head coach Joe Spallina said in an interview with The Statesman.

“We were ranked really high. We had beaten a top five team on the road and we had the carpet pulled out from under us, just like everybody else in the country. It was disheartening and there were a lot of things that you realize you took for granted.”

Spallina has seen it all since taking over the program in the 2012 season. But like everyone else, 2020 threw him and his Stony Brook women’s lacrosse team for a ride. It appeared that the end was nearer than expected for the storied careers of graduate midfielder Ally Kennedy and graduate attacker Taryn Ohlmiller, just two players in one of the strongest rosters Stony Brook has ever seen.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association’s extension of eligibility had hardly been announced yet before the pair announced their intentions to return.

“Once we were able to get that extra year for me and Ally, I knew that looking forward to this year was even more exciting,” Ohlmiller said.

The return of not just one, but two of the best players in the nation to a stacked squad that showcased their immense potential a year ago would be enough to excite any coach in any sport. Throw in a talented and already-productive freshman class who could one day rival the teams who came before them, and the question is: Could this be one of the greatest teams that Stony Brook has ever seen?

Kennedy, who was named U.S. Lacrosse Magazine’s Preseason Player of the Year, and her fellow All-American on the attack in Ohlmiller will garner many of the headlines. As Spallina points out, though, championships are not won with just two players.

The team also brings back senior midfielder Siobhan Rafferty, a 50-goal scorer in 2019 who

missed 2020 with an ACL injury. Throw in fellow senior midfielder Sarah Pulis, senior attacker Jesse Arline and graduate midfielder Kaeli Huff, a USC transfer, this group of savvy veterans are intimidating.

However, the young guns still shoot to score.

Sophomore attacker Kailyn Hart, who’s shown herself to be a SportsCenter highlight waiting to happen, and freshman midfielder Jaden Hampel, the rookie scoring phenom, prove that the Seawolves have an arsenal of weapons ready to score at will.

Keeping that energy going is sophomore Charlotte Verhulst, who has combined with Kennedy to form one of the most lethal draw control duos in the nation, giving the Seawolves a massive possession advantage against any team that they face.

An offense is only as good as their defense allows them to be. Hardly an issue for the Seawolves, as graduate Sydney Gagnon, senior Julia Markey and freshman midfielder Clare Levy bolster a defense that held No. 15 USC to only three goals.

The buck stops with returning redshirt-junior goalkeeper Kameron Halsall. Rebounding from a tough game against the No. 1 North Carolina Tar Heels, which was added to their schedule only days before they played, Halsall has returned to form in recent games and is right where the Seawolves need her.

For this team, the goal is as simple as it gets: winning it all. One of the top-ranked programs in the nation for the last few years, the Seawolves have had the national championship on their minds. It is no small feat, but this team is as stacked and experienced as any other in the country.

They are certainly the best in the America East, owning a 42-game win streak record in conference play and seven consecutive conference titles. However, the “big one” continues to be the ultimate prize this year, just as it was last year prior to the pandemic.

Despite all the exciting aspects of the team and the lofty aspirations that come with it, there has been and will continue to be the overhanging possibility that this season goes the same way as the last: ending prematurely due to the pandemic.

This Seawolves squad is dedicated to making this season count, and they are doing everything to make it happen, mainly by adopting the mindsets necessary to do so.

“Appreciating every day is something that I have brought into this year because of how my senior year last year ended,” Kennedy said. “Just appreciating not only every game, but every practice and moment around my teammates, I know it's going to be special.

And when I’m done here, I want to look back on all of these moments.”

Kennedy and Ohlmiller have certainly left their marks on in Stony Brook history as Seawolves legends. However, this year presents an opportunity of a lifetime for the pair who have been together since their freshman year in 2017. With one more season left with the teammates and friends that they have made, the two are using this chance to lead the younger players and show them what Seawolves lacrosse is all about, much like the girls who played before them.

This will be their final shot at championship glory donning the Seawolves red and blue.

“Second chances don’t really come around that often,” Ohlmiller concluded. “So I think that we were granted this second chance, and we are taking that into our practices and games. And we are really bringing those freshmen and underclassmen into that mindset. Because the seniors who were there when we were freshmen did the same for us and we're really excited to do the same for our freshman.”

It certainly will not be an easy road ahead, but this team and these players are as capable as any before them to win their first national championship.

BATTLE-TESTED MEN’S LACROSSE READY TO MAKE THE LEAP IN GILARDI’S SECOND SEASON

BY RYAN MAGILL

The Stony Brook men’s lacrosse team made a strong — albeit, nail-biting — start to 2020.

Amid an impressive 5-1 record, with four of those wins by one goal and two in overtime, the team took to the road for a game against the Bryant Bulldogs on Mar. 7, 2020. The 15-11 loss stung, but the Seawolves were prepared to rebound a week later back at Kenneth P. LaValle Stadium against Hartford. The pandemic then ended the 2020 season and the stinging feeling of that loss was all the men’s lacrosse team felt for months as players wondered what the future held for them.

When the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) announced universal eligibility extensions at the end of March, the decision was almost too easy to make for the seniors who knew what this team was capable of.

“I think it took about 30 seconds for us to all say that we're coming back when Coach said that we got the waiver in,” graduate attackman Cory VanGinhoven said in an interview with The Statesman. “He looked at us, and he goes, ‘You guys coming back or what?’ and we all just nodded our heads and went ‘Yep, let’s run it back again.’”

Nearly a year after their defeat, the team proceeded to run the same Bulldogs over 14-8 on Feb. 20 to avenge the loss. The pandemic created doubts that Stony Brook could even get a chance to do so. With a returning veteran roster, an infusion of talent from transfers and recruiting, along with a full year under head coach Anthony Gilardi, Stony Brook is looking as poised as ever to be one of the best teams in the nation.

“From a weird point of view, last year was kind of a blessing in disguise for this year,” senior midfielder Connor Grippe said. “You have a

new coaching staff, new system, new rules and all that kind of stuff we all learned last year and now we can come into this year going 100% knowing exactly what we're doing. I think that helped us out.”

Just by looking at the scoring numbers within their first two games, it’s clear that the Seawolves have a potent offense. Among the returning veterans are graduate attackmen Tom Haun and VanGinhoven, midfielders senior Mike McCannel and junior Matt Anderson, and team leaders in Chris Pickel Jr, Tom Dugan and Grippe. The team’s depth is apparent with last season’s overtime specialist, junior midfielder Caleb Pearson, as well as key substitute contributors in redshirt-senior midfielder Wayne White and junior midfielder David Miele-Estrella.

“Selfishly for me, we get so many of our great players back,” Gilardi said with a smile. “The greatest thing that could have happened was the NCAA granting guys another shot.”

But with so many returning players drawing the defensive focus, transfer stars Dylan Pallonetti and Matt DeMeo have shined bright as the two have accounted for 16 of the team's 34 total points through their first two games.

Pallonetti, a Stony Brook native who transferred home from Maryland, recorded six goals in the season opener against Sacred Heart. Meanwhile DeMeo, the grad transfer from Maritime, has been consistently giving the Seawolves goals from day one.

The offense may have the scoring eye candy, but the stout defensive front of the Seawolves is certainly fearsome. Stony Brook returns numerous starting defenders: graduate CJ Trenkle, seniors Devin O’Leary and Danny Cassidy, and sophomore Michael Sabella.

Anchoring in the cage is new starting junior

goalie Anthony Palma, who has posted an impressive 62% save rate on 70 shots faced in two games.

Rounding out the team is the solid contributions from the faceoff squad, as starting juniors Renz Conlon and Austin Deskewicz have combined for 29 of 53 faceoff wins to help give the Seawolves the possession advantage.

If last year proved anything, it was that nothing is guaranteed. In order to avoid feeling the way they did in 2020, this team continues to grind and play as though their season could be canceled tomorrow.

“Last year sucked,” Grippe said. “We ended the season not on our own terms and no one wants to do that. So we just took it day by day.

None of us took it for granted, we worked for the man next to us and we hoped to get back out on the field to do what we love to do.”

As they work hard to keep their season, there is a lot to be excited about for the Seawolves, who have entered the national rankings for the first time in four years. However, the players have noticed something missing from it all: the fans.

“I think pregame, and right before the national anthem played, was when we really noticed the most that the fans weren’t there,” Trenkle said.

With veteran leadership and talent across the board, this is an underdog team that is capable of making noise by the conference playoffs.

If everything clicks the way it has been so far, this is a squad that could be eyeing a run at the NCAA Tournament. For now, the team’s focus is the day-to-day efforts that make winning teams.

Haun, one of the program’s top career goal scorers, put it best: “Coach talks about this all the time. You never know when your last practice will be. Why not play as hard as you can and enjoy it?”

Baseball

Softball

Men’s Lacrosse

Mar. 6 vs. Sacred Heart Mar. 7 vs. St. John’s Mar. 9 vs. Fordham Mar. 20 vs. Maine Mar. 21 vs. Maine Mar. 27 at UAlbany Mar. 28 at UAlbany Apr. 2 vs. Hartford Apr. 3 vs. Hartford Apr. 10 at UMass Lowell Apr. 11 at UMass Lowell Apr. 17 vs. UMBC Apr. 18 vs. UMBC Apr. 24 at NJIT Apr. 25 at NJIT May 1 vs. Binghamton May 2 vs. Binghamton May 8 vs. NJIT May 9 vs. NJIT May 15 at UMBC May 16 at UMBC May 21 at Binghamton May 22 at Binghamton

Mar. 6 at Sacred Heart Mar. 12 at James Madison Mar. 13 Rhode Island Mar. 20 at Boston University Mar. 21 at Boston College Mar. 24 vs. Fairleigh Dickinson Mar. 27 vs. Binghamton Mar. 28 vs. Binghamton Mar. 31 at Fordham Apr. 3 at Hartford Apr. 4 at Hartford Apr. 6 vs. Hofstra Apr. 8 vs. Fordham Apr. 10 vs. UMass Lowell Apr. 11 vs. UMass Lowell Apr. 14 at Seton Hall Apr. 18 vs. Merrimack Apr. 20 vs. St. John’s Apr. 21 vs. UMass Apr. 24 at Maine Apr. 25 at Maine Apr. 28 vs. Sacred Heart May 1 at UAlbany May 2 at UAlbany May 4 at St. John’s May 7 vs. UMBC May 8 vs. UMBC

Mar. 6 at UMBC Mar. 12 at Syracuse Mar. 14 vs. NJIT Mar. 20 at UMass Lowell Mar. 27 vs. UAlbany Apr. 3 at Hartford Apr. 10 at NJIT Apr. 16 vs. Binghamton Apr. 24 vs. UMBC May 1 at Vermont

Women’s Lacrosse Mar. 5 at UMBC Mar. 7 at Towson Mar. 14 vs UMass Lowell Mar. 20 vs. UAlbany Mar. 25 vs. Hofstra Mar. 28 at Hartford Apr. 3 at Vermont Apr. 10 at New Hampshire Apr. 16 vs. Binghamton Apr. 24 at UAlbany May 1 vs. UMBC Design by Will Shewan, Sara Ruberg, Gabby Pardo, Melissa Azofeifa and Brianne Ledda Pictures by Sara Ruberg