By Andrew Valenti, Sports Showtime reporter

The Road to Omaha ended for one team Sunday night in Baton Rouge.

LSU starting pitcher Ryan Eades lasted 2.2 innings and surrendered four runs, and the Tigers could not recover from the early deficit falling to Stony Brook 7-2 in front of an Alex Box Stadium record crowd of 10, 620.

The Tigers are now 5-1 in NCAA Super Regionals hosted at Alex Box Stadium.

The LSU offense mustered two runs on three hits as Seawolves’ starter Frankie Vanderka kept Tiger hitters at bay all night. The righty tossed a complete game while striking out five and walking four.

“Their pitcher (Vanderka) was phenomenal,” outfielder Mason Katz said. “He did what their guy did last night. He worked both sides of the plate, he threw three pitches for strikes and he was keeping us off balance.”

Katz crushed a solo home run into the left field stands in the first inning to tie the score at 1-1. LSU did not score again until the seventh when Alex Edward scored on a sacrifice fly to deep right-center by Austin Nola.

“They played phenomenal defense,” a somber Raph Rhymes said. “We hit balls hard, but they just found some gloves tonight. You have to give credit to Stony Brook, to their pitching and to their defense.”

A Division III program until the end of the 1998 academic year, Stony Brook punched its ticket to the College World Series for the first time in the program’s history.

“”I am a little overwhelmed because I think I do know the magnitude of this,” Seawolves head coach Matt Senk said.” It is just an overwhelming feeling. To make it to Omaha, every college baseball teams dream, every college baseball coaches dream and it has come to fruition. To do it against LSU in Alex Box Stadium with Coach Mainieri what a class act.”

Stony Brook will face UCLA in its first game at the College World Series in Omaha Friday.

Contact Andrew at [email protected]