OMAHA! GO SEAWOLVES!!!

Hometown Heroes:  West Islip’s Pat Cantwell and Lindenhurst’s Michael Roehrig

We New Yorkers have taken part in our share of sports Cinderella stories. In 1969, the Jets and Mets overcame improbable odds to capture a professional championship.  The NFL’s New York Giants  won championships in 2007 and 2011 after winning multiple games on the road as double-digit underdogs.  In 1980 when New York hosted the Winter Olympics, our great state laid ground to the US Hockey Team’s “Miracle on Ice” when we beat a Soviet team who many thought was the best in the world.

New York has another sports Cinderella story in the making, and two local area athletes are in the middle of it.  West Islip’s Pat Cantwell and Lindenhurst’s Michael Roehrig are players on Stony Brook University’s College World Series-bound baseball team.  Stony Brook, which has won 28 of its last 31 games, is just the second No. 4 seed to reach the College World Series since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1999. The Seawolves are also the first America East team to reach the College World Series.

I hope that you’ll join me in rooting Pat and Mike on by watching Stony Brook University play today, Friday June 15th at 5:00 p.m. ET on ESPN2/ESPN3. 

Pat and Mike’s team’s story is amazing.  After dispatching Miami (FL), Missouri State and Central Florida in the Coral Gables Regional, the Seawolves traveled to Baton Rouge, La. to face LSU in the NCAA Super Regionals. The six-time national champion Tigers held off Stony Brook, 5-4, in game one, forcing the Seawolves to win two straight games at hostile Alex Box Stadium for an improbable berth in the College World Series. Stony Brook proceeded to shock the world by winning game two, 3-1, and the deciding game three, 7-2, to clinch its first-ever College World Series appearance.

For more information about the Stony Brook University baseball team’s historic accomplishment and West Islip’s Pat Cantwell and Lindenhurst’s Michael Roehrig click here.