Photo courtesy of Stony Brook University Athletics
Stony Brook softball took on the Charleston Cougars at University Field on March 23 and when it was all over, the Seawolves clinched a series win 5-4. Kyra McFarland capped off a perfect day at the dish with a walk-off homer. Down to their final out, the Cougars tied the game in the seventh, but it was McFarland’s heroics that ultimately decided the Sunday matinee on Long Island.
Crimson Rice made her second start of the weekend series on Sunday, starting her day with a 1-2-3 inning. Stony Brook’s offense put up three runs in the home half of the first. Alyssa Costello started things with a single through the middle, scoring on Mia Vannelli’s fielder’s choice. Emma Scheitinger plated a run on a single and a third run scored on a fielding error.Rice worked around an error behind her to complete a second straight scoreless inning to start her Sunday.
After the Seawolves went down in order in the second, Charleston evened things at 3-3 with a three-run inning of its own. The Cougars loaded the bases with nobody out and pushed a pair of runs across before registering an out.
Gabrielle Maday entered in relief of Rice, who failed to record an out in the third and allowed the first five hitters to reach base. Maday allowed one inherited runner to score, but stranded a pair of runners to keep things tied. Stony Brook put runners in scoring position in the third, fourth and fifth innings, but could not capitalize on the opportunities.
Maday retired the side in order in the fourth and fifth, then worked around trouble to strand a pair of runners in scoring position in a tied game in the sixth.
Nicole Allen pinch hit to lead off the sixth, doubling down the left field line. Allen moved up 60 feet on a Kaiya Simpkins sacrifice bunt and then scored the go-ahead run on a Costello sacrifice fly.
Down to their final out, the Cougars tied things up on a Paradis double over Scheitinger’s head in right. Maday induced a grounder to limit the damage to one run and give her offense a chance to win it in the bottom of the seventh.
McFarland did just that, slamming the second pitch she saw over the fence in center to walk it off.
“What a terrific ballgame. I think all around, all three parts of the game, our best game of the year,” head coach Megan T. Bryant said. “She’s a good hitter, she’s a fifth-year player. She works super hard in the weight room. She refused to lose there and that’s what you love to see out of a fifth-year veteran player,” Bryant added regarding McFarland’s walk-off homer.
The team hit the road for a mid-week doubleheader at Sacred Heart on March 25. The results were not available at press time but were posted online at www.tbrnewsmedia.com.
#2 Charlotte Wilmoth scored eight points for her team during Sunday's game.
Photo courtesy of Stony Brook University Athletics
Stony Brook women’s lacrosse scored nine of the game’s final 10 goals to pick up its sixth win of the season, defeating the Delaware Blue Hens 16-8 in Newark, Del. on March 23. The Seawolves improve to 6-3 on the season and a perfect 2-0 in CAA action.
It was a team-effort for the Seawolves offensively as Charlotte Wilmoth led the Stony Brook squad with a season-high eight points on four goals and four assists, as Riley McDonald and Alexandra Fusco each tallied three goals. Molly LaForge and Casey Colbert notched a pair apiece, while Isabella Caporuscio and Olivia Schorr each scored one goal.
Defensively, Avery Hines collected a team-high four ground balls and four caused turnovers. In net, Natalia Altebrando continued her string of successful outings, making a career-high eight saves on the day with her third-straight contest with a .500 save percentage.
After a Delaware tally to start the game, A. Fusco notched a goal to tie it up early. The Blue Hens then got their second of the day as it became a back-and-forth affair with the Seawolves collecting a pair of goals for their first lead. Delaware answered with two of their own to take a 4-3 advantage into the second quarter.
Stony Brook scored four with Molly LaForge scoring her first of the season and Wilmoth collecting a quick hat trick with three straight. The Blue Hens’ Ella Rishko would score at the buzzer to bring Delaware back within one and the Seawolves led 7-6 at halftime.
The Blue Hens added another coming back from the break to level the score 7-all, as Stony Brook went on a 7-0 scoring run through almost 15 minutes of play to conclude the third quarter and continue into the fourth.
Delaware got one more on the board before a pair from the Seawolves to close out the Sunday matinee and secure their second CAA victory of the season.
The team heads back to Long Island to begin a three-game homestand on March 26.
Vincent Iacono (second from left) with research and PhD. students in 1982. Photo courtesy of Stony Brook School of Dental Medicine
By Daniel Dunaief
When Dr. Vincent Iacono first starting teaching at the Stony Brook School of Dental Medicine, he was contemporaries with the students.
That was back in 1974, when Gerald Ford was president, when Post-It Notes were invented and when supermarkets first started scanning bar codes.
A great deal has changed since then. One of the constants over the next half century has been Iacono, who has taught every one of the students who has graduated from the Stony Brook School of Dental Medicine.
“When I started out, the students and I were about the same age,” said Iacono. “Now, I’m like a grandparent to some of the students.”
From left, Vincent Iacono, Jeanne Garant, Port Jefferson Mayor from 1999 to 2005 and Phil Garant, Dean of the School of Dental Medicine from 1979 to 1992. Photo courtesy of Stony Brook School of Dental Medicine.
Iacono, who is the chair of Periodontics and Endodontics and the Director of Postdoctoral Education at Stony Brook School of Dental Medicine, has served in a host of roles at the university as well as in professional societies, gathering appreciative admirers along the way and serving as a skilled local doctor, a leader and role model.
“It’s a remarkable achievement for someone to have touched so many lives as a part of their career,” said Dr. Ira Lamster, a consultant for Santa Fe Group, a think tank dedicated to oral health. Lamster was in the first class to graduate from the Stony Brook School of Dental Medicine in 1977 and served as Dean of the Columbia University College of Dental Medicine.
“I’m proud to have been taught by him,” said Dr. Wayne Aldredge, who works in private practice in Holmdel, New Jersey. Aldredge completed his postdoctoral program at Stony Brook in 1999. Aldredge described Iacono as a “great mentor” and an “encyclopedia of all things related to periodontics and dental implants.”
Indeed, Aldredge suggested that Iacono could “sit down tomorrow and write a paper overnight that would take me three weeks to get done.”
A long-time contributor to education at the dental school, Iacono has earned numerous honors, has served as a clinician and has held a host of leadership positions for national dental groups.
He led the American Academy of Periondotology as president, and was a past Periodontics Commissioner for the Commission on Dental Accreditation. He was also the chair of the Academy of Osseointegration.
Iacono has won numerous awards, including the Isadore Hirschfeld Award and Irwin Scopp Award from the Northeastern Society of Periodontists and the Oral Research Award and Fellowship from the Academy of Osseoointegration. He earned the Distinguished Alumni Award from the Harvard School of Dental Medicine, where he graduated with his DMD in 1972 and earned his Certificate of Periodontology and Oral Medicine in 1974.
“It’s the selfless side of what you do outside school and teaching where he’s had a huge contribution,” said Aldredge.
Building from the beginning
Growing up in Brooklyn and with family who lived in the tri-state area, Iacono was pleased with the opportunity to join Stony Brook after graduating from Harvard.
He felt he was getting in on the “ground floor” and that the early years were an exciting time to build up the school.
“The opportunities continued to grow as I grew in age,” said Iacono.
The Stony Brook School of Dental Medicine is a highly competitive program.
In the class of 2028, the dental school had 1,484 applicants for 46 available spots. The periodontics residency program also had 86 applicants for three spots.
“They want to come here because our dental school’s reputation is phenomenal” and where students get considerable one-on-one interaction with educators, Iacono said.
A defining interaction
When Iacono first started teaching, he was also more involved in research.
Indeed, Dr. Steve Zove, Director of Predoctoral Periodontics at Stony Brook School of Dental Medicine, recalls walking into Rockland Hall before the start of the dental program. He was searching for a summer research position. When he introduced himself in the building, the first person he saw directed him to Iacono’s lab, where Iacono did microbiological and immunology research.
“Dr. Iacono is the reason I went into periodontics,” said Zove, who graduated from Stony Brok Dental School in 1983. The two are close friends, with Zove’s children referring to Iacono as “uncle.”
Among many other superlatives, Zove called Iacono one of the”best lecturers he’s ever come across.”
Iacono effectively gets students involved in lectures, sharing anecdotal information while bringing the class together, Zove said.
Educational changes
Indeed, education has changed considerably over the years.
In the earlier days, Iacono used a blackboard and chalk. Now, students can download lectures and presentations from the cloud and take exams electronically.
Iacono appreciates the opportunity to learn from and tap into the expertise of residents, who help him stay up-to-date technologically.
The change in student demographics means that he has sometimes struggled to find a common vocabulary outside the world of dentistry to communicate.
“If I’m lecturing on bone morphology and I’m describing the shape and pattern of bone resorption around a tooth” and he says the bone resorption is in the shape of a moat, some of his students “don’t know what the word ‘moat’ means. I have to explain a castle with a moat and alligators swimming around.”
He has to express terminology in a way that the class as a whole can understand.
Dental advancements
Iacono has seen numerous changes in periodontics, implant dentistry and general dentistry.
Zove recalled that Iacono was one of the first people to go to Sweden in the 1980’s to study dental implants with the late Per-Ingvar Brånemark, who is considered a pioneer in the field.
Dentists have also enhanced their use of technology to regenerate bone lost to disease and to enhance the esthetic outcomes of surgery.
The use of biologics has already increased exponentially in using growth factors and looking at chemical mediators.
Periodontists also classify the stages of gum disease into one, two and three, a system they didn’t have years ago.
Keeping on
Iacono has enjoyed his work and plans to continue with his teaching and clinical efforts.
He knows it’ll be time to consider retiring when residents don’t come to him for advice in their academic or clinical work.
“If I see that I’m not being asked by my colleagues, by residents for assistance, by students to teach, to provide clinical care, to administrators in developing educational tools to comply with the standards, then I’ll know it’s time to fade away,” he said.
After Iacono has spent more than 50 years and plenty of rinse-and-spit moments at Stony Brook, his colleagues say his help and views remain in high demand.
“He’s one of the most respected individuals within our profession,” said Zove. “He’s a go-to person” in numerous roles, including the accreditation process.
Shelley Germana. Photo courtesy of Stony Brook University
By Daniel Dunaief
Performance on tests, essays and presentations can often reflect as much, if not more, about what’s going on with a student outside the classroom as it does during a course.
A sociologist by training who earned her PhD from Rutgers, Shelley Germana, Senior Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education at Stony Brook University, recognized the impact and importance of health, family life, and financial strains when she taught a class of conditionally admitted students to Rutgers University.
“It’s the first time I realized [student performance] was largely about the non-academic stuff,” said Germana. “I was teaching as if it was just about academics, give them theory, give them concepts, break down the information for them. It wasn’t about that.”
Instead, mental health and social challenges, among others, affected how well they did in class.
That realization changed her career path from a plan to become an educator into one in which she dedicates herself to student success.
Indeed, fast forward to today, and Germana helped create the Summer Academic Resilience Program Stony Brook for students in 2024 who were struggling academically after their first year.
The five credit summer course, which was offered as part of a pilot program for 30 students, was given at no cost to the students. While living on campus and having access to dining facilities, the students not only received classroom support, but also had wrap around services.
This includes accessibility support, mental health aid, and employment. Students took a three-credit general education course and a two-credit academic success course for five weeks.
The students in this course had grade point averages that were close to or below 2.0, which could have led to a suspension.
The effort on the part of the students and the school paid dividends, with four students still below 2.0 in the fall and the remainder above that threshold. At the same time, 11 students earned a grade point average above a 3.0 this past fall.
“What this demonstrates is that this degree of structured, holistic support can be really transformative,” said Germana.
The university is preparing for the 2025 summer session and is hoping to increase the number of student participants to 50.
Embracing a bigger role
Provost Carl Lejuez applauded the work Germana has done with this pilot program and her overall efforts on behalf of student success.
Germana “was in the number two role for undergraduate education for many years and everyone was really aware of how hard she worked and how talented and strategic and student focused she was,” said Lejuez. “I was really excited about the possibility of her being in that role and it has worked out in every way I thought it would.”
Indeed, in academic year 2024-2025, Stony Brook had record enrollment, while the university has also managed to increase student retention to around 90 percent.
“That’s because of the holistic approach she takes,” said Lejuez.
Germana credits a number of other parts of the university for the increasing percentage of students who return for their second year of classes.
“Everybody has a hand in student success and retention, from student affairs to faculty,” said Germana. “It’s all part of the package.”
Germana added that student advisors have had a positive influence on success as well.
In a recent Boyer Commission report that looks ahead to 2030, the commission has specific recommendations for advising, including lowering case loads. This enables advisors to meet regularly with students.
The commission also urges advisors to move beyond academic support and into areas like the transition from high school to college.
“The recommended case loads were lower than what we had at Stony Brook,” said Germana. The administration, from the president to Lejuez supported the university’s investments in academic advisors.
Germana and Vice President for Student Affairs Rich Gatteau run a working group that meet regularly to discuss holistic success and have advocated for greater support for advisors.
Two years ago, Stony Brook invested about a million dollars in adding academic advisors.
The university plans to make a similar type of investment again this year.
“What I love about [Germana] is that she understands traditions and best practices and is always working with people to be innovative and think about new ways to do it.”
Flipping the script
Germana suggested that institutions of higher learning have sometimes approached struggling students by suggesting they have a learning deficit.
While she does not dismiss the fact that some students have preparation issues, she prefers to focus on the assets they bring to the classroom, despite the challenges they face in their lives.
“We should not be underestimating what the students bring” to the classroom, Germana said.
“They are clearly capable or they would not have been admitted,” said Germana.
Like some students at Stony Brook, Germana, who is a native of southern New Jersey, is the first member of her family to attend college.
Higher education is a “transformative experience” that has enriched her life.
She added that the college experience and the opportunities that follow are empowering.
Stony Brook can and should be a “place where they’re going to grow and transform and become citizens of the world,” Germana added.
The Marian B. and Jacob K. Javits Foundation recently gave $1 million to Stony Brook University Libraries, creating its largest-ever endowment. This endowment was established to help preserve, promote and make accessible the Senator Jacob K. Javits Collection at Stony Brook.
Additional funding for the Jacob K. Javits Collection Engagement Fund will be matched by the New York State endowment match program and the Simons Infinity Investment Match Challenge, tripling the impact of this endowment gift. This project also received institutional support to begin programming as the endowment builds.
The Javits family, 1956; left to right: Marian B. Javits, Carla Javits, Senator Jacob K. Javits, Joshua Javits, and Joy Javits. Photo from Special Collections, Stony Brook University Libraries
“We thought a high-caliber New York State academic institution, which already had a long and deep familiarity with our father’s papers, would be the perfect venue to maintain and disseminate his ideas and achievements,” said Senator Javits’ son, Joshua Javits.
“By making the collection more accessible, we hope the practical ideas and concepts that he worked on his whole life will inspire people and the future of policymaking,” said Carla Javits, Senator Javits’ daughter.
Senator Javits played a critical role in shaping national policies on civil rights, social justice, the arts and environmental protection during his more than three decades of service as an elected official from New York. He also had a long-standing relationship with former Stony Brook University President John H. Marburger III and spent time at the university, meeting with faculty and students and giving lectures on campus.
The collection was received in 1981, when Senator Javits contributed his life’s papers, highlighting resources over the senator’s 34-year career. The collection features almost 2 million items, containing speeches, bills and campaign literature, audio and film recordings, photographs, artifacts and memorabilia, cartoons and correspondence.
“This collection serves as a powerful educational resource,” said Kristen Nyitray, director of Special Collections and University Archives. “It is not only an archive of the past, but a source for informed citizenship and critical thinking about the present and future.”
“We are profoundly grateful for the generous endowment received to maintain the Sen. Jacob K. Javits Collection. As we navigate these challenging times, it’s more important than ever to ensure access to such invaluable resources,” said SBU Libraries Dean Karim Boughida. “By facilitating enhanced access to the collection, we honor Sen. Javits’ legacy and reaffirm our commitment to serving as a hub of knowledge and collaboration for all.”
The Stony Brook baseball team overcame a 3-0 deficit heading into the sixth inning, rallying with six runs over the final four frames to secure a 6-3 victory over the Delaware Blue Hens in Newark, Del. on March 23. This win marks their first CAA victory of the season.
John Rizzo took the mound for Stony Brook, setting the tone early by striking out the first three batters of the game.Both teams managed a double in the second inning—Matthew Jackson for Stony Brook—but neither was able to push a run across.After a one-out single by Delaware in the bottom of the third, Luke Szepek delivered a clutch throw to erase the runner at second, followed by a lineout to end the inning.
The Blue Hens struck first, plating three runs on two hits in the bottom of the fourth.
Following a quick 1-2-3 fifth inning for both teams, Stony Brook ignited a comeback in the sixth, tying the game at 3-3. Evan Goforth sparked the rally with a double to left field, followed by walks from Johnny Pilla and Nico Azpilcueta to load the bases. Jackson came through in the clutch with a two-RBI single up the middle, scoring Goforth and Pilla. Szepek then drew a bases-loaded walk, allowing Azpilcueta to cross the plate and tie the game.
Nicholas Rizzo entered in the bottom of the sixth and worked out of a jam, stranding two Delaware runners with a flyout to end the inning.
In the seventh, Erik Paulsen delivered a game-changing moment, launching a home run into the right-field trees to give the Seawolves a 4-3 lead.
Jacob Pedersen took over on the mound in the seventh, striking out two batters with runners on base and stranding another in the eighth to preserve the lead.
Chris Carson led off the ninth with a double to right field and later scored on a Delaware error. Goforth added insurance with another double to left field, bringing home Matt Miceli and extending Stony Brook’s lead to 6-3.
Pedersen sealed the victory by stranding two more runners in the ninth, forcing a game-ending groundout.
Up next, the team returns home to Joe Nathan Field on April 1 to host Iona. First pitch is set for 3 p.m., with live streaming available on FloBaseball.
Dr. Sritha Rajupet. Photo from Stony Brook Medicine/Jeanne Neville
By Daniel Dunaief
While many people are fortunate enough to ignore Covid or try to put as much distance between themselves and the life altering pandemic, others, including people throughout Long Island, are battling long Covid symptoms that affect the quality of their lives.
Dr. Sritha Rajupet Photo from Stony Brook Medicine/Jeanne Neville
Sritha Rajupet, Director of the Post-Covid clinic at Stony Brook Medicine and Chair of Family, Population & Preventive Medicine, puts her triple-board certified experience to work in her efforts to provide relief and a greater understanding of various levels of symptoms from Covid including pain, brain fog, and discomfort.
Rajupet serves as co-Principal Investigator, along with Dr. Hal Skopicki, chief of cardiology and co-director of the Stony Brook Heart Institute, on a study called Recover-Autonomic.
This research, which uses two different types of repurposed treatments that have already received Food and Drug Administration approval in other contexts, is designed to help people who have an autonomic nervous system disorder called Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome. People with this syndrome typically have a fast heart rate, dizziness or fatigue when they stand up from sitting down.
Stony Brook is contributing to a clinical trial for two different types of treatments, each of which has a control or placebo group. In one of the trials, patients receive Gamunex-C intravenous immunoglobulin. In the other, patients take Ivabradine by mouth.
Stony Brook has been enrolling patients in this study since the summer. The intravenous study is a nine-month trial.
Some improvements
Dawn Vogt, a 54-year-old Wading River resident, is enrolled in the intravenous trial.
While Vogt, who has been a patient of post Covid clinic since November of 2022, doesn’t know whether she’s getting the placebo or the intravenous treatment, she has been feeling better since entering the study.
Dawn Vogt in 2018.
The owner of a business called Office Solutions of Long Island, Vogt has been struggling for years with body aches, headaches, fever, stomach pain, fatigue and coughing.
“I’m definitely feeling better,” said Vogt, whose Covid fog can become so arduous on any given day that she struggles with her memory and her ability to put words together, as well as to engage in work that required multitasking.
“I’m a big puzzle person,” said Vogt. “[After Covid] I just couldn’t do it. It was and still is like torture.”
Still, Vogt, who was earning her undergraduate degree in women and gender studies at Stony Brook before she left to deal with the ongoing symptoms of Covid, feels as if several parts of her treatment, including the clinical trial, has improved her life.
Since her treatment that started during the summer, she has “definitely seen improvement,” Vogt said.
Dawn Vogt in 2023.
In addition to the clinical trial, Vogt, who had previously run a half marathon, received a pace maker, which also could be improving her health. “I’m starting to have more energy, instead of feeling exhausted all the time,” she said, and has seen a difference in her ability to sleep.
Vogt feels fortunate not only for the medical help she receives from Rajupet and the Stony Brook clinic, but also for the support of her partner Tessa Gibbons, an artist with whom Vogt developed a relationship and created a blended family in the years after Vogt’s husband died in 2018.
“My hope is that I can find a new normal and that I can become functional so that I can get back to doing some of what I love,” she said.
Vogt urges others not to give up. “If your doctors don’t believe you, find one who does,” she said. “My doctors at Stony Brook, including Dr. Rajupet and the whole team, are amazing. They listened, they are compassionate and they don’t ever say, ‘That’s crazy.’”
Indeed, in working with some of the over 1,500 unique patients who have come to Stony Brook Medicine’s post-Covid clinic, Rajupet said she “explores things together.” When her patients learn about something new that they find through their own research, she couples that knowledge with her own findings to develop a treatment plan that she hopes offers some comfort and relief.
Ongoing medical questions
Doctors engaged in the treatment of long Covid are eager to help people whose quality of life can and often is greatly diminished.
People “haven’t been able to work, haven’t been able to do activities they enjoy whether that’s sports as a result of their fatigue or myalgia [a type of muscle pain]. Concentration may be affected, as people can’t read or perform their work-related activities,” said Rajupet.
At this point, long Covid disproportionately affects women.
During her family medicine residency, Rajupet learned about preventive medicine in public health. She worked with specific populations and completed an interdisciplinary women’s health research fellowship.
Her research background allowed her to couple her primary care experience with her women’s health background with a population approach to care.
The Stony Brook doctor would like to understand how many infections it takes to develop long Covid.
“For some, it’s that one infection, and for others, [long Covid] comes in on the third or fourth” time someone is battling the disease, Rajupet said.
She also hopes to explore the specific strains that might have triggered long Covid, and/ or whether something in a person’s health history affected the course of the disease.
Rajupet recognizes that the need for ongoing solutions and care for people who are managing with challenges that affect their quality of life remains high.
“There are still 17 million people affected by this,” she said. “We have to make sure we can care for them.”
As for Vogt, she is grateful for the support she receives at Stony Brook and for the chance to make improvements in a life she and Gibbons have been building.
Her hope is that “every day, week, month and even hour, I take one more breath towards being able to function as best as possible,” Vogt said. “My goal is to live the best life I can every day.”
Stony Brook men’s lacrosse dropped a highly contested, back-and-forth matchup at Towson on March 22, 13-12, in overtime. Freshman Brendan Marino led the Seawolves offensively, notching a season-high five goals. Stony Brook came out of the gate hot, opening the game with back-to-back goals from Marino. Towson promptly responded with three straight goals to take a 3-2 lead with 3:48 remaining in the first quarter.
The Tigers’ lead was short-lived. Less than a minute later, Marino scored a goal to secure a first-quarter hat trick and even things at 3-3 heading into the second.
Towson regained momentum early in the second, opening the quarter with a pair of goals to take a 5-3 lead.
The Seawolves answered, closing the second quarter on a 4-2 run. Goals in the final minutes from Kian McCoy and Marino evened things at 7-7 heading into the half.
Richie Dechiaro scored a goal for Stony Brook early in the third quarter to open the second half scoring and take back the the lead for the Seawolves. Following that, Collin Williamson and Robbie Smith each netted two goals, extending the Stony Brook lead to 10-7 with 8:21 left in the third.
Towson scored two out of the following three goals as the Seawolves took an 11-9 advantage in the fourth quarter.
The Tigers scored the first two goals of the fourth to tie the game at 11-11 with 6:55 remaining in regulation. The Seawolves answered back just 34 seconds later with a goal by Justin Bonacci, making it 12-11 in favor of Stony Brook with 6:21 remaining in the fourth.
With just under three minutes to play in regulation, Towson found the back of the net to even things at 12-12 and eventually force overtime.
In sudden death with 3:15 to play, Towson’s Josh Webber buried the game-winner to walk it off for the Tigers.
The team will return to LaValle Stadium next Saturday, March 29 for a matchup against No. 15 Fairfield at noon.
The Stony Brook baseball team jumped out to an early 1-0 advantage, but an eight-run outburst in the third inning by Delaware ultimately propelled the Blue Hens to an 8-1 victory in the series opener on March 21 in Newark, Delaware, marking the start of CAA play for the Seawolves
Erik Paulsen extended his on-base streak to all 19 games this season by recording a hit in the first inning. However, the Blue Hens turned a double play to end the top half of the frame.
Eddie Smink took the mound for Stony Brook, striking out the first batter he faced and stranding a runner to keep Delaware scoreless through one.
The Seawolves struck first in the second inning, as Nico Azpilcueta led off with a walk and Matthew Jackson followed with an RBI double to put Stony Brook ahead 1-0.
After Smink stranded a runner in the second, the Seawolves applied pressure again in the third, loading the bases with two outs, but they were unable to push another run across.
Delaware responded emphatically in the bottom of the third, plating eight runs behind two home runs to seize an 8-1 lead.
Nicholas Rizzo entered the game in relief for Stony Brook in the fourth and tossed a perfect 1-2-3 inning. He followed up in the fifth by stranding two runners, keeping the deficit at 8-1.
Ty Panariello took over in the sixth and struck out all three batters he faced. He continued his dominance by retiring the side in order in both the seventh and eighth innings.
Luke Szepek collected a one-out single in the seventh and advanced to second, but Delaware escaped the inning with a strikeout.
In the ninth, Szepek added another single, and Matt Miceli was hit by a pitch to put two runners on with two outs. However, the Blue Hens closed out the game with a flyout, securing the 8-1 win.
Stony Brook softball survived a late comeback effort from Charleston, defeating the Cougars 5-4 on March 22 at University Field. Emily Reinstein provided the go-ahead, two-RBI double, Jordyn Fray picked up her first collegiate win in relief and Gabrielle Maday staved off Charleston’s late rally to notch the save.
Emma Scheitinger started the scoring in the second inning, jumping the first pitch she saw from Charleston’s Kutter and hitting it off the scoreboard in left field to put Stony Brook ahead, 1-0. The homer was the first of Scheitinger’s collegiate career.
Seawolf starter Maddie Male escaped trouble in the first, stranding the bases loaded, before retiring the side in order in the second.
Male retired two of the first three hitters in her second turn through the Charleston lineup to begin the third inning, but back-to-back two-out singles plated a run and another came around to score on a designed first-and-third steal play.
Fray took over for Male to start the fourth inning, allowing a two-out triple that pushed another run across for Charleston.
Trailing 3-1, the Seawolves scratched across a run in the fourth. Kaiya Simpkins reached safely on a throwing error from the left side of Charleston’s infield and the errant throw allowed Mia Vannelli to score.
Fray set down the Cougars in order in the fifth, sending her offense back out to take claim of the lead again.
Vannelli hit a bloop single into right field with two outs, scoring Kyra McFarland with the tying run. After Scheitinger was hit by a pitch, Charleston turned to its bullpen. Reinstein welcomed the new pitcher with a two-out, two-RBI double into over the centerfielder’s head to give the Seawolves a 5-3 lead.
Maday entered in the sixth to protect the lead, doing so with a clean sixth inning.
After allowing back-to-back singles to start the seventh, Maday secured the first out on a fly ball to right field.
An infield single loaded the bases with one out. Charleston sacrificed an out for a run with another fly ball to right, but could not plate another. Maday induced a grounder to short that McFarland handled and fired to first to secure a win for Stony Brook.
“It was a really tough ballgame and I’m super proud of our team for turning the page after yesterday’s loss, coming out and playing a complete game to get the win today,” head coach Megan T. Bryant said.
Up next, Stony Brook and Charleston play the series finale on Sunday, March 23. First pitch is slated for noon from University Field, streaming live on FloCollege.
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