Montclair, NJ – The long wait is over for the Montclair State baseball team. The Red Hawks are headed going back to the NCAA Division III Baseball Championship for the first time in 13 years.
It became official on Monday afternoon as MSU grabbed one of the 19 at-large bids to the field of 60 teams. Montclair State will face Ithaca College on Friday, May 20 at Immaculata University in Pennsylvania. Keystone College will take on the host Mighty Macs in the other opening round game.
The four-team, double-elimination tournament continues on Friday, May 21 and Sunday, May 22 with the winner advancing to next week's Super Regionals.
A fixture in the NCAA Tournament, including three-national championships (1987, 1993 and 2000), its been more than a decade since the Red Hawks' last appearance. However, a renaissance season in 2022 has led MSU back to the national tournament for the first time since 2009 when it competed in the Lakewood, NJ Regional.
The appearance in this year's NCAA Tournament will be Montclair's 28
th overall, which includes trips to the NCAA College Division in 1972 and 1975 before making the Division III Tournament for the first time in 1976. Thirteen of those NCAA Division III berths resulted in championship finals appearances, the last coming in 2006. All totaled, MSU is 99-50 in those Division III Tournament games.
Head coach Dave Lorber, in his third season at the helm, brings a 31-11 Red Hawk team into the tournament and it enjoying its best campaign in 15 years. Montclair won 30 games for the first time since 2006 and finished 15-3 in the NJAC, its best conference record since 2001 while earning the No. 2 seed in the league tournament. The Red Hawks also re-entered the national polls for the first time since 2012.
MSU boasts one of the top offenses in the Division III this season, averaging 9.5 runs per game reaching double digits 18 times during the year, including four contests with 20-plus runs. Montclair placed six players on the All-NJAC Team, including four on the first Team. Leading the way is senior first baseman
PETER COSENTINO, selected to the First-Team for a second consecutive year. Cosentino is hitting .369 with 17 doubles, nine home runs and 50 RBI while also scoring 51 times with 62 hits. Freshman designated hitter Jordan Jurkiewicz leads the team with a .416 average along with a team-best 11 home runs, 52 RBI and 64 hits. Second baseman
MILES FEASTER is having a breakthrough year with 35 RBI and a .387 batting average with
ANTHONY GUARINO posting a .384 average and 29 RBI while providing plenty of defense behind the plate. Jurkiewicz, Feaster and Guarino joined Cosentino on the First Team. Senior
JOE NORTON earned his third all-conference honor and became the all-time stolen base leader this season in addition joining the 200-hit club in MSU history. Norton is hitting .375 with 36 RBI, 45 runs scored and 18 stolen bases.
In the pitching department junior lefty
PATRICK CUCCURULLO is enjoying the best season by a Red Hawk hurler since 2012. Cuccurullo is 7-3 on the season with a 2.40 ERA and 92 strikeouts in 71 1/3 innings. Freshman
ETHAN GONZALEZ went 4-2 in his first season with MSU with relievers
NICHOLAS SEFICK and
DARREN GONZALEZ combining for eight wins out the bullpen.
The field this weekend is a mix of familiar and unfamiliar for the Red Hawks. Montclair has never faced the host Mighty Macs and has met Keystone on seven occasions over the last 12 years, the last in 2021 when the Giants pulled out an 8-6 victory in La Plume, PA. Meanwhile the Friday game against Ithaca will be the 36
th meeting against the Bombers, however the two have not squared off against one another since 2013. Five of those 35 previous games with Ithaca have taken place in the NCAA Tournament, the latest a 7-6 win by the Red Hawks in 2008 in the New York Regional on a Stephen Piscatello sacrifice fly in the ninth inning. The Bombers won the first meeting in the 1976 Division III World Series (10-5) with Montclair evening the score in 1984 in a 12-4 triumph in the Northeast Regional. Ithaca won the next two – 14-12 in the 1986 World Series and 8-6 in the Mid-Atlantic Regional in 1991.
