Motivated by a storied history and a MCWS drought, St. John's baseball has its eyes on the NCAA postseason

MASON, Ohio — We could talk about the fact St. John’s has gone to the Men's College World Series six times, more than any other team in the Northeast except for Maine. But the last trip to Omaha was 44 years ago.

We could note how the Red Storm’s nine Big East tournament titles are four more than anyone else in the conference. And that they have played in 37 NCAA regionals. But the most recent for any of that is 2018. They hadn’t even qualified for the league tournament since then, meaning they finish in the top four in the regular season.

We could mention how the Johnnies’ rich tradition includes winning what many call the greatest college baseball pitching duel ever witnessed. Matter of fact, Tuesday was its anniversary. The 43rd anniversary. The two future major leaguer stars who kept the NCAA regional game a spotless 0-0 through 11 innings before St. John’s won it 1-0 in the 12th — St. John’s Frank Viola and Yale’s Ron Darling — are now eligible for Social Security. Darling carried a no-hitter into the 12th that afternoon and lost on a bloop single and a double steal. Together, the two competitors who refused to blink threw more than 350 pitches.

Yep, we could talk a lot about St. John’s past. Except this team has other fish to fry.

“They want to make their own history,” coach Mike Hampton said. “That’s what they want to do.”

St. John’s began its first Big East tournament in six years with a raucous 11-9 win over Georgetown Wednesday to move to 35-16-1 in this renaissance of a season. You have to go down the RPI rankings a bit to find the Johnnies, at No. 54. Then again, you had to go down to 165 last season, which is one reason St. John’s was picked to finish sixth this year in the Big East. But here the Red Storm are the No. 2 seed in the Big East tournament behind Connecticut.

Ah, the Big East. Yeah, they play other sports in that league, too. Not every ball has to be orange. True, the year has featured the Connecticut men steamrolling through March to repeat as national basketball champions, the UConn women showing up for the 23rd time in the Final Four, the Seton Hall men turning anger about no love on Selection Sunday into an NIT title run. All very Big East-ish.

But that doesn’t mean things can’t be compelling here at the conference baseball tournament in Prasco Park outside Cincinnati, where the parking and admission are free, and so are the hot dogs and soda and the orange-vanilla swirl at the ice cream truck.

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Take St. John’s. The Red Storm’s mission is clear: Reverse all recent trends. “It’s been an uphill battle ever since I got here.” said junior Jackson Tucker, who not only drove in a run with a triple Wednesday but took three away from Georgetown with a leaping catch at the center field wall that left the bases loaded. “No excuses for any season or any game but so much stuff has not gone our way. This program is built on grit, tradition and just not quitting.”

The main idea is to get back to the NCAA tournament. “It’d mean everything,” Tucker said. Indeed, there has been a dry spell like this only once before in school history.

“It’s really special to be part of a team that can bring a program to where it once was. I think the reason a lot of us came here was the winning tradition,” catcher Jimmy Keenan said, who won Wednesday’s game with a two-run homer in the ninth. That was the first walk-off blast in the Big East tournament since the conference was rebooted in 2013. “It’s a place that this program hasn’t been for a long time and I think that it is really our time to change that.”

Apparently they mean it. Looked that way in the Georgetown game, anyway, when St. John’s had to break two ties and wipe out one deficit with seven runs in the last three innings. That was evidence of a team that has come to understand winning. “This is not an uncommon game. It’s been like that all year,” Hampton said, named the Big East coach of the year.

He has been on the staff for more than two decades and head coach since 2020, his revival plans first beset by the pandemic and then by injuries. So getting St. John’s back to the spotlight means something to him. “A lot of these guys have never been here. I wanted them to be able to experience it. We talked about it at the beginning of the year,” he said. “They play the game hard, they play the game right. I’m so happy for them.”

St. John’s has the 19th best earned run average in the nation but also is in the top 40 in fielding, doubles and triples. Wednesday’s lineup included brothers Paul and Luke Orbon — Paul interned last summer in the Major League Baseball office in New York — and starting pitcher Xavier Kolhosser, a redshirt sophomore who is 8-2 and already a veteran of Tommy John surgery. Keenan has thrown out 24 runners this season. There’s a submariner out of the bullpen, Tim Cunningham, who made his 100th career appearance Wednesday.

Hampton believes the Big East has grown to the point where it can step in with the power leagues in baseball and hold its own. One reason is the downsizing of the Major League draft. “Twenty rounds are a lot different than 50 rounds,” he said. “They’ve got to go somewhere, right? There’s a lot more baseball players out there to choose from.”

He saw something good coming for St. John’s back in February. The Johnnies started their season by leaving winter and indoor practice behind in New York, going to Gainesville and promptly upsetting No. 2 Florida 9-5. It was the highest-ranked opponent St. John’s had ever defeated in the regular season, and the first time in 11 years the Gators had dropped their opener. “We’re not used to losing opening nights,” Florida coach Kevin O’Sullivan said back then.

“You never know how good you are when you’re coming out of the gym,” Hampton said. “I really think it told our guys that we could really play with anyone, if we play the game right. That’s what I’ve always stressed to these guys; just play the game the right way, and good things are going to happen.”

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So he could see the potential to rekindle the tradition. And about that tradition. That famous Viola-Darling duel, for instance. “These guys, I try to let them know the history,” Hampton said. “In this generation they have a hard time staying in the present, let alone talking about the future or looking at the past.

"They weren't even a thought back then." No, the details of that epic moment are lost on these Red Storm. “Actually,” Tucker said, “we know Frank Viola.”

No matter, this week is what matters now and the next step to return to an NCAA regional was getting past Georgetown. They needed RBIs from six different players to do it. “One of the things coach says all the time is that we’ve just got to pass it to the next guy,” Keenan said. “We don’t need to hit a four-run homer every time up.”

But as Tucker noted about Keenan's Wednesday walk-off, "Sometimes the big guy hits a home run, too."

The poor Hoyas, by the way. Georgetown has fielded a baseball team since 1870, five years after the Civil War, but is still trying to get to its first NCAA tournament. Until three years ago, the Hoyas had 35 losing seasons in a row but have since reeled off 34, 30 and 32 victories in a rather extraordinary uptick led by coach Edwin Thompson. Georgetown came here with a 1-12 all-time record in the Big East tournament, but a No. 3 seed and with the league Player of the Year in first baseman Christian Ficca. The Hoyas had a spot in the winner’s bracket in sight with two home runs and seven RBI from Kavi Caster, until the Johnnies pulled it back.

The Red Storm will face the Xavier-Connecticut winner, once it stops raining in Ohio. Yeah, UConn is in the middle of baseball contention just like basketball, as the No. 1 seed and league season champion. You could almost turn back the clock to March. St. John’s wants to turn it back a good deal further than that.

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