STONY BROOK BASEBALL CLINCHES AMERICA EAST REGULAR SEASON TITLE and will host Tournament May 23-26 at Joe Nathan Field

Johns Hopkins tops Men's Lacrosse, 19-9 in NCAA First-Round

Final Stats

Baltimore, Md. - The Stony Brook men's lacrosse team's crazy and exciting 2012 season came to an end Sunday as Johns Hopkins defeated the Seawolves, 19-9, at Homewood Field in the first round of the Men's Lacrosse Championship.

Sophomore Matt Bellando (Miami, Fla.) tied a career-high with three goals and set a career-high with four points.
Senior Russ Bonanno (Seaford, N.Y.) scored a pair of goals.
Junior Jeff Tundo (Orchard Park, N.Y.) and senior Robbie Campbell (Delta, British Columbia) tallied a goal and two assists.
Junior Sean Brady (Huntington Bay, N.Y.) made nine saves in his final appearance for Stony Brook. "Obviously we didn't want to end the season this way, but we scrapped and fought for each other," Brady said.
Brandon Benn led Johns Hopkins with five goals. Chris Boland added three goals and four assists.
"I'm real proud of this team for fighting through the adversity in a transition year," coach Jim Nagle said. "We weren't quite ready to compete at this level."
Johns Hopkins (12-3) scored three unassisted goals in the first 3:03 of the game. After killing a 30-second penalty, Stony Brook went man-up for an illegal body check. Rooney, one of the nation's leading scorers among freshmen, took a pass from Bellando on the door step and scored his 34th of the season.
Hopkins scored four unanswered and led 7-1 after a quarter.
Play was even for the first half of the second quarter. A save by Brady allowed Stony Brook (7-10) to draw on its longest possession of the game. Campbell found Bellando for the goal to cut the deficit to 7-2. The Seawolves added to the momentum, winning the ensuing draw to set up possession. Campbell found Bonanno, who rifled a shot past Hopkins goalie Pierce Bassett.

The Blue Jays scored two straight to up its lead to 9-3 before Bonanno dodged the right alley, scoring his 21st of the season.
Hopkins answered with its 10th goal of the game, but Stony Brook answered once more. Tundo had the ball after an unsettled situation and found senior Kyle Belton (Langley, British Columbia) to make it a 10-5 game.
The Blue Jays scored five straight before Bellando's second goal of the game made it 15-6. Tundo added his first of the game just four seconds before the end of the third quarter.
Hopkins led by as many as 11 goals in the fourth quarter.

Men's Lacrosse set to face Johns Hopkins Sunday in NCAA Tournament

2012 VIRTUAL GUIDE

2012 Division I Men's Lacrosse Championship - first round
Game #17: Stony Brook Seawolves (7-9) vs. #7 Johns Hopkins Blue Jays (11-3)
Sun., May 13 • Homewood Field • Baltimore, Md. • 3 p.m.
LIVE: STATS | VIDEO | AUDIO | TWITTER
INFO: GAME NOTES (PDF)
TV: ESPNU / ESPN3.com
Play by Play: Mike Corey
Color Commentary: Mark Dixon
Radio: WUSB 90.1 FM
Play by Play: Matt Mankiewich
Color Commentary: Frank Barile
Stony Brook Seawolves (7-9)
Head Coach: Jim Nagle, first season
Overall Record: 158-112
Record at SBU: 7-9
Johns Hopkins Blue Jays (11-3)
Head Coach: Dave Pietramala, 11th year
Overall Record: 160-61
Record at JHU: 137-44
About The Game: Having defeated New York State rival Albany in the America East Championship title game, the Stony Brook men's lacrosse team travels to face No. 7 Johns Hopkins in the first round of the Men's Lacrosse Championship. The Blue Jays, seeded second in the tournament, are making their 41st apperance in the tournament.


Scouting Hopkins: Johns Hopkins is led by junior Zach Palmer's 23 goals and 23 assists. Palmer, a high school teammate of junior JJ Laforet, could be the second Blue Jay since Paul Rabil in 2007 with 25 goals and 25 assists. Junior Pierce Bassett has started 37 straight games in goal, registering a 7.08 goals against average and a .542 save percentage. The Blue Jay defense has allowed only 10 or more goals twice this season - 10 to Virginia and 13 to North Carolina.

Last Time Out: Junior Jeff Tundo (Orchard Park, N.Y.) scored four goals and Sean Brady (Huntington Bay, N.Y.) made 11 saves to lead the Stony Brook men's lacrosse team to its third America East Championship with a 14-8 win over Albany. The Seawolves receive the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
Stony Brook in the NCAA Tournament: The Seawolves are making their third appearance in the Men's Lacrosse Championship and second in the last three years. Stony Brook faced Cornell in 2002, losing to the Big Red, 12-3. In 2010, the Seawolves, seeded eighth, topped Denver, 9-7. Playing before a partisan crowd at LaValle Stadium, Stony Brook lost to top-seeded Virginia, 10-9, in the quarterfinals.
Stony Brook-Johns Hopkins Series: Sunday's game will be the first all-time meeting between the two schools. Head Coach Dave Pietramala, who came to Hopkins from Cornell, led the Big Red to a 12-5 win over Stony Brook in 1999.

Softball season ends with 6-5 loss to Albany in America East Tournament, ties most wins (36) as a program

Box Score
BOSTON --
Boston, Mass. – The Stony Brook softball team had its season come to an end on Saturday after suffering a pair of losses at the hands of Boston University and Albany in the America East Tournament. Stony Brook dropped its first game of the day to BU, 7-3, before falling in a heartbreaker against the Great Danes, 6-5.
The Seawolves finished the season with a 36-17-1 record (a .676 winning percentage) and tied a program record for the most wins in a single season in Stony Brook history.
In Saturday’s opener, the Seawolves battled top-seed Boston University (39-14) for the right to advance to the championship on Sunday. The Terriers, who were designated as the road team after a coin flip, struck first with a run in the top of the first off SBU starter Allison Cukrov.
Stony Brook quickly answered, however, when senior Bernadette Tenuto (Audubon, N.J.) singled home freshman Shayla Giosia (Runnemede, N.J.) to tie it at one in the bottom of the frame.
Tenuto then gave the Seawolves a 2-1 lead two innings later when she ripped another RBI single through the middle to bring home senior Alyssa Hawley (Spokane, Wash.).
But the pesky BU attack would not go away as the Terriers plated runs in the fourth, fifth and sixth innings to go in front 4-2 heading to the bottom of the sixth.
Stony Brook would not go quietly.
After three straight singles to lead off the inning, pinch-hitter Nicole Hoyle (Warwick, Md.) delivered a clutch single through the left side to bring the Seawolves within a run. With a golden opportunity to tie the game and possibly go ahead, Stony Brook could not do any further damage as BU pitcher Whitney Tuthill induced three consecutive ground-outs, including two force-outs at home, to end the threat and swing momentum back to the Terriers.

Boston University carried the swing into the top of the seventh, adding three more runs to salt away the Seawolves’ comeback bid and go ahead for good at 7-3.

The victory advanced Boston University to Sunday’s championship and forced Stony Brook to play a second game on Saturday against No. 3 Albany, which had knocked off No. 4 Maine earlier in the day.
Things did not start well for the Seawolves as the Great Danes (36-13) pushed across two runs in the bottom of the first to go ahead 2-0.
Just as in the first game, Stony Brook answered the early deficit with two runs of its own in the second, highlighted by a solo home run off the bat of Tenuto.
Albany tacked on four more runs in the third to take a four-run lead at 6-2 and force the Seawolves to play from behind yet again.
And play catch-up they did.
After an RBI double by senior Lauren Maloney (Las Vegas, Nev.) made it 6-3 in the fourth, Giosia popped her eighth home run of the season to left in the fifth to cut the deficit to 6-5. In the sixth, Stony Brook advanced a runner to third with two outs, but Albany starter Brittany Schwieger pitched out of trouble to put a stop to the rally.
Reliever Christine Lucido (Melville, N.Y.) retired the Great Danes in order in the sixth to give SBU one final chance to tie the game in the seventh. After a leadoff single by senior Suzanne Karath (Fishkill, N.Y.), Hawley laid down a textbook sac-bunt to move the runner into scoring position with one out. Giosia then stepped to the plate and blasted a hard liner to short, but Albany’s Alexa Toole made a leaping catch and doubled Karath off second to end the game and eliminate Stony Brook from the competition.
Lucido pitched four scoreless innings in relief of Cukrov and allowed only three hits, while striking out one. After the game, Maloney and Tenuto were named to the All-Tournament Team after hitting .667 and .500 for the weekend, respectively.
This will be the third time in the last four years and fifth time overall Boston U. and Albany will decide the league champion. The Terriers are attempting to become the first host to win the tournament since 2004 while the Great Danes are attempting join Hofstra's 1999 squad as the only teams to lose their tournament opener and win the championship.

2012 America East Softball Championship
At Boston University Softball Field
Friday, May 11
Game 1: No. 1 Boston U. 3,vs. No. 4 Maine 2
Game 2: No. 2 Stony Brook 6, No. 3 Albany 4

Saturday, May 12
Game 3: Boston U. 7, Stony Brook 3
Game 4: Albany 2, Maine 0 (elimination game)
Game 5: Albany 6, Stony Brook 5 (elimination game)

Sunday, May 13
Game 6: Albany vs. Boston U. 10 a.m. (championship game)
Game 7: Albany vs. Boston U., 12:30 p.m. (if necessary)

Baseball sweeps doubleheader from UMBC

Game 1 Box Score
Game 2 Box Score

Junior William Carmona scored the game-winning run in the bottom of the seventh as the Stony Brook baseball team rallied from a 4-0 deficit to beat the UMBC Retrievers, 6-5, in the first game of a doubleheader at Joe Nathan Field. Stony Brook then completed the sweep with a 21-8 win in game two.
Freshman Steven Goldstein (East Meadow, N.Y.) went 3-for-4 with five RBI in the second game after collecting two hits in the opener. Stony Brook (38-11, 16-3 AE) has won 14 of its last 15 and 24 of its last 27 and is two wins from becoming just the third team in America East history with back-to-back 40 win seasons.
Senior Pat Cantwell (West Islip, N.Y.) and junior Maxx Tissenbaum (Toronto, Ontario) each had three hits and three RBI in the second game. Junior Travis Jankowski (Lancaster, Pa.) had two hits in both ends of the doubleheader.
UMBC scored four runs in the first in the opener but the Seawolves scored two in the second and one in the third to get within 4-3. Sophomore Kevin Courtney (Lindenhurst, N.Y.) then drilled a two-run double down the right field line to give SBU its first lead of the day in the fourth.
The Retrievers tied it in the sixth on a Brian Klukowicz home run and the game went to the bottom of the seventh still tied 5-5. Carmona opened the inning with a double and UMBC intentionally walked Tissenbaum.
Junior Tanner Nivins (Kitchener, Ontario) then laid down a bunt that was fielded by UMBC starter Steve Miller, who tried to get Carmona at third. But his throw went down the left field line allowing Carmona to come home with game-winning run.
Stony Brook again fell behind in game two as UMBC answered a four-run Stony Brook fourth with four unearned runs in the fifth to take a 5-4 lead.
But the Seawolves blew the game open with an eight-run fifth, sending 13 batters to the plate. Goldstein had the big hit of the inning, a three-run home run to right.
UMBC got no closer than six runs the rest of the way as the Seawolves rolled to the doubleheader sweep. Sophomore Brandon McNitt (Chino Hills, Calif.) did not allow an earned run in 5.0 innings to earn the win in game two.
The Seawolves wrap up their three-game series with UMBC and play their final home game of the regular season on Sunday at 1 p.m.
It will be Alumni Day and Senior Day at Joe Nathan Field. The Seawolves will honor their

FCS set to expand playoffs to 24 teams in 2013

It has taken college football's elite more than 100 years to be dragged toward a playoff system that will likely still only have a handful of teams.
Smaller schools have been doing the playoffs for a long time -- and they're about to make them bigger.
The Football Championship Subdivision is on the verge of expanding its playoff system from 20 to 24 teams by 2013. The proposal would give an automatic bid to all FCS leagues that want one, seeds the top eight teams and gives them first-round byes and home games in the following round.
"The concern has been we've haven't had a full tournament with automatic qualifiers for all the existing conferences. That's a big part of making sure everybody has an opportunity for their champion to participate," said Appalachian State athletic director Charlie Cobb, the new chairman of the Division I Football Championship Committee. "The sentiment is that by seeding the top eight, it keep more to a truer sense of what a national tournament is about, and I think that's the beauty of what we have."
The proposal goes before an NCAA championships cabinet next month and will be subject to final approval by an executive committee on Aug. 2. It is expected to pass and be in place for the 2013 playoffs, which will include three more at-large bids and one more automatic qualifier in the Pioneer League.
"It's the next logical step in our development of the FCS championship," said Kyle Kallender, the Big South commissioner and chairman of the FCS commissioner's committee.
For Football Bowl Subdivision fans who've long thought the BCS was unfair, seeing the words logic and champion in the same sentence might be strange.
But the FCS has been holding a playoff since 1978. It expanded to 20 teams with five seeds in 2010 and, according to Kallander, started considering further expansion even then as a way to more fairly accommodate a growing membership that will include 124 teams in 2012.
There was also a desire to provide an automatic bid to the Pioneer League. The Ivy League and the Southwestern Athletic Conference don't send their champions to the FCS playoffs.
With those tenets as a starting point, FCS officials brainstormed a number of possibilities that included:
-- A bracket model that seeded all 24 teams.
-- A regionalization model with six teams seeded in four regions based on geography.
-- A Final Four model where national semifinals and the title game would be played on sequential weekends on one site.
For reasons ranging from attendance to money to competitive fairness, none of those ideas made the final cut.
Cobb said the main problem with the bracket model was a lack of reliable data to seed more than eight teams fairly. FCS schools rarely play outside their region, making it difficult to accurately gauge strength of schedule.
The regional model, based on Division II's playoffs, was scrapped because the FCS didn't want teams from the same league to meet in the first round of the playoffs. Some regions would also inevitably be stronger, too, and the Final Four idea was rejected because semifinal games on a neutral site wouldn't draw nearly as many fans as a campus game.
The FCS instead decided on a system that may spur more juicy non-conference matchups in the regular season because there would be more at-large bids and an incentive to boost strength of schedule.
Some coaches think the methodology needs to also change if the FCS selection committee is going to seed eight teams instead of just five. The committee weighs factors that include the Gridiron Power Index or GPI, a compilation of computer and human polls similar to the BCS model.
The GPI is a sore spot for Northern Iowa coach Mark Farley. The Panthers had to play at Montana in last year's playoffs even though they were ranked higher in The Sports Network Top 25. They lost 48-10.
Farley would also like to see a win over an FBS school count more than a win over an FCS one. The Panthers will play at both Wisconsin and Iowa this season to help ease the blow of state budget cuts.
"The weight of your schedule should play a lot more into it," Farley said. "We need to weigh the difference between playing a Wisconsin and playing an (FCS) team."
There are concerns about schedules that could include up to 16 games. But any team playing a 16-game season would be finishing it in a national title game and it is unlikely anyone would complain about that.
"It's tough," Cobb said. "But the playoffs are called the second season for a reason. Once you get to it, everybody's got a chance. And I think if you ask any coach or any player, they'd rather be in the playoffs than not in the playoffs."

Women's tennis falls to No. 4 Stanford in NCAA First Round

Photo Gallery

Stanford, Calif. - The Stony Brook women's tennis team saw its season come to an end Friday afternoon, falling to No. 4 Stanford, 4-0, in the first round of the 2012 NCAA Championships at Stanford's Taube Stadium.
Playing with just five players due to injury, the Seawolves needed to win both doubles matches in order to earn the doubles point. But the Cardinal won 8-0 at the No. 2 spot to take a 1-0 lead.
The No. 1 doubles team of freshman Polina Movchan (Kiev, Ukraine) and junior Nini Lagvilava (Tbilisi, Georgia) won the first game of their match and trailed just 5-2 when the No. 2 match finished.
Stanford took a 2-0 lead into singles play as Stony Brook forfeited at the No. 6 position. Nicole Gibbs, the third-ranked player in the nation, defeated Lagvilava, 6-2, 6-0 at the No. 1 spot to give the Cardinal a 3-0 lead.
Senior Salome Mkervalidze (Brewster, N.Y.) then dropped a 6-1, 6-0 decision at the No. 5 position as Stanford clinched the victory.
Playing her final match at Stony Brook, senior Katherine Hanson (Smithtown, N.Y.) dropped a close 6-4 first set at No. 3 singles and trailed 4-1 in the second set when Stanford clinched the victory.
At No. 2 singles, Movchan dropped the first set 6-2 but was tied 3-3 in the second set when the match was called.
The 2012 America East Rookie of the Year and Most Outstanding Player of the America East Championships, Movchan finished her first season at Stony Brook with an 18-3 record at No. 2 singles.
The Seawolves, who won the program's first America East Championship on April 30, finish the season 14-8.
2012 NCAA Women's Championships First Round
No. 4 Stanford 4, Stony Brook 0
DOUBLES
1) No. 24 Tan/Tsay (STAN) led Lagvilava/Movchan (SB), 5-2
2) Dillon/Li (STAN) d. Appineni/Hanson (SB) 8-0
3) STAN wins by forfeit
Order of Finish: 3, 2
Singles
1) No. 3 Nicole Gibbs (STAN) d. Nini Lagvilava (SB) 6-2, 6-0
2) No. 5 Mallory Burdette (STAN) vs. Polina Movchan (SB) abandoned
3) No. 74 Ellen Tsay (STAN) vs. Katherine Hanson (SB) abandoned
4) Veronica Li (STAN) vs. Prerana Appineni (SB) abandoned
5) Natalie Dillon (STAN) d. Salome Mkervalidze (SB) 6-1, 6-0
6) STAN wins by forfeit
Order of Finish: 6, 1, 5

STONY BROOK SOFTBALL BEATS ALBANY, 6-4 IN AMERICA EAST TOURNEY OPENER...FACES #1 BU, SATURDAY 11am

Softball slugs by Albany in AE Tourney opener - Stony Brook Official Athletic Site

STONY BROOK Swimming and Diving put on hiatus in 2012-13

Stony Brook Official Athletic Site

Stony Brook Athletics hosts the 2012 Wolfies

Photo Gallery

Stony Brook University's Department of Athletics held its annual Awards Ceremony Monday night at the Student Activities Center on campus with more than 475 people in attendance. Headlining the honorees were Stony Brook Male Athlete of the Year Brock Jackolski (Shirley, N.Y.) of the football team and Stony Brook Female Athlete of the Year Lucy Van Dalen (Wanganui, New Zealand) of the women's track & field team.

Jackolski had a season for the ages in 2011, helping lead the Seawolves to their third consecutive Big South championship and to the second round of the NCAA Div. I Football Championship. He recorded a Big South record 2,441 all-purpose yards and 20 touchdowns en route to first-team All-Big South honors as a running back and second-team honors as a kick returner. He was named an All-American by three different organizations and finished his career 16th all-time in Football Championship Subdivision with 6,394 all-purpose yards.

Van Dalen made Stony Brook history when she became the school's first-ever national champion by winning the mile at the 2012 NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championship. Not only did she earn first-team All-America honors in the mile, she also competed in the 3000 less than two hours later and placed 10th to earn second-team All-America honors. This year, she has been named America East Most Outstanding Track Performer both at the indoor and outdoor championships and was named the USTFCCCA Northeast Region Indoor Track Athlete of the Year.

Mike Rooney (East Islip, N.Y.) of the men's lacrosse team and Allison Cukrov (Irvine, Calif.) of the softball team were named recipients of Stony Brook's Rookie of the Year Award. Rooney currently leads all freshen in the nation with his team-best 32 goals. He is part of a Seawolves team that captured the 2012 America East Championship and is playing in the NCAA Tournament this weekend. Cukrov had put together one of the best seasons in program history. She is 24-8 with 1.60 ERA and 220 strikeouts this season, broke the program record for single-season shutouts with 13 and pitched two no-hitters this season, including a perfect game.

Hayley Green (Wellington, New Zealand) of the women's cross country team and Kyle Moeller (South Setauket, N.Y.) of the men's lacrosse team were the recipients of the Stony Brook Senior Scholar-Athlete Awards, given to the male and female student-athletes with the highest GPAs among the senior class. Green, who had a 3.90 GPA, graduated in December with a degree in Psychology while also minoring in Biology. Moeller is majoring in Business Management and minoring in Technological Systems Management while sporting a 3.88 GPA. The pair led a senior class that had 43 student-athletes with a 3.0 GPA or higher.

Miguel Maysonet (Riverhead, N.Y.) of the football team and Greta Strenger (Woodbury, Minn.) of the volleyball team were each named recipients of the Athletic Director's Award for their contributions to their teams and their representation of the ideals of Stony Brook Athletics. Roope Kailaheimo (Helsinki, Finland) of the men's tennis team and Alicia Nelson (Apple Valley, Minn.) of the volleyball team were both honored with the Faculty Athletic Represenative Award for their contributions to their teams and to the Stony Brook community.

Men's & women's swimming & diving head coach Dave Alexander was the recipient of the Courage Award, which is given to a member of Stony Brook Athletics who has overcome personal tragedy or serious injury and has demonstrated uncommon bravery in the face of adversity. Pat Cantwell (West Islip, N.Y.) of the baseball team and Holly Van Dalen (Wanganui, New Zealand) of the women's track & field team were named the Swagger Award winners, which was voted on by their fellow student-athletes, for fitting the definition of swagger.

Green, Moeller, Bryan Dougher (Scotch Plains, N.J.) of the men's basketball team and Salome Mkervalidze (Brewster, N.Y.) of the women's tennis team were recipients of the SUNY Chancellor Awards for outstanding achievement in athletics and academics among SUNY's Div. I schools in their respective sports.

Barbara Chernow, Senior Vice President for Administration at Stony Brook was named the recipient of the Shirley Strum Kenny Service Award for outstanding service towards Stony Brook Athletics and its student-athletes.

In addition to individual awards, Most Valuable Player and Coaches Awards were handed out to each of Stony Brook's 20 varsity teams.