SANBORN -- SUNY Niagara got about 20 minutes to celebrate.
Forty-nine wins in 97 days without a loss netted the Thunderwolves the top overall seed in the NJCAA Division III World Series. But after 20 minutes, coach Matt Clingersmith gathered the team and told them their record was wiped clean.
"Yes, sir."
Four of SUNY Niagara's current Division I commits are pitchers and they lead the country with a .183 batting average against. But to keep their record unblemished, Clingersmith believes they key will be hitting, something the Thunderwolves have also done better than any team in the country this season.
SUNY Niagara is ranked first in the country with a .419 batting average, while ranking second in on-base percentage (.509) and slugging percentage (.632). It also ranks in the top 20 in home runs, doubles, triples and sacrifice hits, meaning it gets the job done by any means necessary.
The last five national champions have averaged 9.9 runs per game during the World Series. And the champion has lost a game in the double-elimination tournament just once in the last decade.
Seres
"Everybody's got aces and all that," Clingersmith said. "It's who's going to hit their top pitchers. I think it's always the team that gets hot and that can swing the bat a little bit."
Not only are the Thunderwolves hitting nearly 50 points better than they did a year ago, but they have 24 more extra-base hits and their on-base percentage is almost 50 points higher. Any player in the lineup can be the hero at any time.
Pitchers can't miss spots because SUNY Niagara will make them pay. All 11 players with at least 50 at-bats are hitting at least .342. Five of them are hitting over .400.
Shortstop Nigel Sebastianelli is the ringleader, hitting a scorching .500 with 50 RBIs. Fellow sophomore Christopher Finocchario is hitting .410 with 28 RBIs and Gavyn Boyle is hitting .397 with 10 home runs and 54 RBIs.
Infusing three freshmen into the lineups has taken the Thunderwolves to the next level, though. Two of them -- Cooper Rossano and Dalton Harper -- are Division I kickbacks, like Boyle was a year ago.
Rossano, who spent last year at Albany, is hitting .477 with a team-high 61 RBIs. Harper, who went to Georgia Southern, and Lancaster graduate Mike Schaefer simply get on base at a high clip.
Harper is hitting .453 and has an on-base percentage over 10 points higher. Schaefer is hitting .453 and gets on base at a 54% rate.
And once the Thunderwolves get on base, there's a good chance they are going to score. Not only do they score on 35.7% of plate appearances, but they score 58.4% of the time they get on base.
"We don't give a pitcher any breaks," said Sebastianelli, who is headed to Division I Towson. "We've got scholarship guys one through nine. So even if we're at the bottom of the order, (the pitcher) still can't miss."
Another advantage the Thunderwolves might have over the first few days of the tournament is the location. SUNY Niagara just played three games in the Region III tournament at Falcon Park in Auburn, so players know the dimensions of the park and should have a slight home-crowd advantage for those who make the two-hour drive.
In SUNY Niagara's other eight World Series appearances, it has been held somewhere south. The Thunderwolves have played in Greeneville, Tennessee four times, Tyler, Texas three times and Kinston, North Carolina in 2015.
The World Series was initially in Jamestown in 1993 and 1994, then it was held in Batavia from 1995-2004 and Glens Falls the ensuing two years. But it was moved to Tyler from 2007-2014 and it hasn't been held in the north since.
"I think this is the first time our county is going to be able to come see us play in a World Series," Clingersmith said. "When we played other places, we didn't get a lot of fan base support. I think the weather is going to help us because it's going to be a little colder and I think a lot of people are going to come out and support us."