The Bears are State Champions.

Go ahead, say it out loud: “The Bears are State Champions.”

It sounds good. And it sounds strange too–we’ve only been able to say it one other time in our school’s history related to a tournament championship. In 2009, our girls’ soccer team stunned undefeated #1 Sauquoit Valley in the NYSPHSAA final to win our only crown. This does not minimize the accomplishments of our sailing team, which has won the New York State Championship for the last four years, but for just the second time in school history, a Stony Brook team has emerged as the champions of a state tournament.

Yesterday afternoon, the Blue & White “finished the drill” in the words of head coach Jon Brewer, by overwhelming sixth-seeded Columbia Prep, 13-1, to cap a dominant run through the state playoffs that saw the Bears breeze through the three rounds by a combined score of 33-4.

The Bears had already defeated the Lions 12-0 just three weeks earlier, and wasted little time in grabbing control of the rematch. Boston College-committed Leo Vitarelli took the mound for the final time this season and bookended a walk with a pair of strikeouts in the top of the 1st. A stolen base put the runner on second with two outs, setting up the most electric defensive play of the season.

After receiving the signal from Brewer, Vitarelli made a pick-off throw to nab the runner at second base. The ball appeared to skip by a diving Larry Hotaling II as he and shortstop Aiden Ruiz, along with center fielder Alex Baaden, took off in pursuit of the errant throw. But they were chasing air. The ball had never left Vitarelli’s hand, and as the runner took off for third, the pitcher tossed the ball to Mateo Lopez, who tagged out the runner as bedlam ensued in the Bears’ dugout. A hidden ball trick in a State Championship game. The Bears were not only the superior team talent-wise; their IQ and execution literally distorted reality for the Lions with a play that set the tone for the afternoon.

Jordan Serrano led off the bottom of the 1st for the Bears and sent the first pitch of the game into the right field corner for an easy triple. Two pitches later, the Wake Forest-bound junior trotted home on a passed ball to give the Bears an early 1-0 advantage.

In the 2nd, Vitarelli locked in with an eight-pitch effort that yielded a pair of ground outs and a strikeout. In the bottom half, the Bears doubled their lead when Juju Martinez sent a high fly to left field that looked destined for foul territory before a breeze pushed it back into fair ground and out of the reach of the outfielder for a three-base error. A second passed ball brought another run for a 2-0 advantage.

In the 3rd, Vitarelli was at the height of his powers when he struck out the side to retire his last seven batters. In the Bears’ half, Baaden flashed his speed on a bunt single, Serrano was hit by a pitch, and Hotaling III walked to load the bases with nobody out. A wild pitch brought home a 3-0 lead before Ruiz walked to load the bases again. Another passed ball scored a fourth run on either a passed ball or wild pitch as the Bears continued to benefit from the spacious area behind the plate at Purchase College. Anthony DeCesare then sent a two-run single to right to give the Bears a commanding 6-0 lead.

In the 4th, a leadoff infield single gave the Lions their first hit, but Vitarelli sat the next three batters down in order to retire 10 of the last 11. The Bears put the game out of reach in the bottom half on a two-run ground-rule double from Serrano and an RBI ground out from Hotaling III that extended the advantage to 9-0.

In the 5th, Vitarelli struck out the first two batters and sidestepped a single with another K to bring his total on the day to 10. An RBI single for Seth Laureano and a two-run single for Lopez saw the Bears continue to pour it on as the rout reached 12-0. Columbia scratched out a run in the top of the 6th. Josh Diaz’s ground out in the bottom of the 6th gave the Bears their final run.

All that was left was three outs for the title. Chris Nell slammed the door on the greatest season in 93 years of Stony Brook baseball by striking out the side to bring the Bears pouring out of the dugout in a long-awaited victory celebration.

From 1922 to 1945, the Bears played without a league affiliation. The Bears helped form the Ivy League in 1946, where they competed until the spring of ’73, winning a lone league title in 1967 behind the masterful pitching of Dick Malmstrom. In 1974, the Blue & White played their first of 45 seasons in the NYSPHSAA, winning a trio of league titles and county titles and a Long Island Championship in 1999 behind players like Dean Sandbo, Paul Ciofrone, Robbie Marvin, and Pete Grimm. The team also dealt with some challenging seasons and only made the state playoffs once in nearly five decades.

In 2016, the team finished 2-18 and hadn’t been to the playoffs since 1999, but a kaleidoscope of people and events over the next eight years produced yesterday’s perfect moment of joy. Dustin Mones, Jon Brewer, Noah Bakker, and Ryan Horstman found their way to The Brook to form one of the strongest coaching staffs in the northeast, setting a framework for unparalleled talent development in our region. Early transfers like Joe and Tim Wozny, Tyler Smith, and TJ Wachter raised the Bears’ level of play. Milestones were reached, like the return to postseason play in 2018 and the first championship in 20 years in 2019. Painful playoff losses helped the Bears learn how to win, like the walk-off defeat to Mercy in 2018 and last year’s 2-1 loss to Poly Prep in the state final.

Later transfers continued to bolster the Bears’ talent to a height never before seen on the diamond at SBS. Jojo Franco, Justin Porrino, Lee-Anthony Santiago, and others, though they weren’t on the field yesterday, laid the groundwork for the victory. The seniors of this year’s squad–Baaden, Laureano, and Travis Stroud II–led a group of supremely gifted young men who believed, put in the work, and finally finished the job for all the teams that came before them.

The boys made it look easy yesterday, but behind every smooth defensive play, patient at bat, and clutch hit were thousands of repetitions, early mornings, late nights, weekend travel–sacrifice. Winning easy takes a lot of hard, unseen work. A year of practices under the leadership of Jon Brewer made a State Championship game feel routine.

With no one left to play, the final chapter of the 2024 Bears is complete, but its legacy is assured. This team, this season, will long be remembered as one of the greatest in our school’s 102-year history.

And the best could still be yet to come…

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