Stony Brook, N.Y. – The Stony Brook baseball team, last year’s America East regular season champion and winner of 35 games, unveiled its 2015 schedule, which features early-season matchups with a pair of top 25 programs in Florida and Louisiana-Lafayette, a three-game home series with BIG EAST member Creighton and a 24-game America East slate.
“This schedule is reflective of our program’s philosophy to play as competitive an early non-conference schedule as we can to give ourselves the opportunity to gauge where we are at and where we need to go,” said #Seawolves head coach Matt Senk. “Once we begin playing conference games, along with non-conference games within our region, we look to compete and be successful with our goal of repeating as regular season champions and performing at a high level in postseason tournaments.”
Stony Brook will open the season with a three-game set at Nicholls State from Feb. 13-15 before embarking on back-to-back three game series with 2014 NCAA Tournament teams, Louisiana Lafayette and Florida.
The Seawolves take on the Ragin’ Cajuns in Lafayette from Feb. 20-22. Lafayette won its NCAA Regional last season before bowing out to Ole Miss in a decisive third game of its Super Regional. They finished the season with 58 wins and ranked no. 8 in the USA Today Coaches’ Poll.
Like Louisiana-Lafayette, Florida was a No. 1 seed in its NCAA Tournament Regional, but unlike the Ragin’ Cajuns, was unable to advance to the Super Regional. The Gators finished the season ranked No. 24 in the Coaches’ Poll with a 40-23 record.
Other notable non-conference matchups featured a pair of three-game series against BIG EAST teams. This includes a three-game home stand with Creighton, who finished last season with a 32-17-1 record, on March 21-22, and a three-game series at Georgetown April 18-19.
Stony Brook will get its first crack at defending its America East regular season title March 14-15 when it hosts Binghamton in a three-game series. The #Seawolves will also host UMass Lowell (March 28-29), UMBC (April 11-12) and Hartford (May 2-3) in conference action, and they will play Maine (April 3-4), Albany (April 25-26), UMass Lowell (May 9-10) and Binghamton (May 15-16) on the road.
The #Seawolves will also play mid-week non-conference games against regional opponents, including an April 15th home game against LIU-Brooklyn, which is now coached by former Stony Brook All-American Alex Trezza.
Senk’s club returns six starting position players from last season’s 35-18 squad, including first-team All-America East shortstop Cole Peragine (Belle Ewart, Ontario), second-team outfielder Jack Parenty (Wantagh, N.Y.) and freshman All-American Casey Baker (Ronkonkoma, N.Y.). Junior Tyler Honahan (Parker, Colo.), a second-team starting pitcher, returns to bolster the pitching staff, as does first-team reliever and America East Rookie of the Year Cameron Stone (West Haven, Conn.).
