New Paltz Baseball Coach Thomas Seay Named ABCA Region III Coach of the Year
New Platz Sports Information Department
Announced Tuesday by the American Baseball Coaches Association, Hawks coach Thomas Seay becomes the program's first ever ABCA/Rawlings Region III Coach of the Year.
Seay, in his sixth season with the team, led the program to unprecedented heights with a magical run that saw SUNY New Paltz clinch its very first SUNYAC title and NCAA tournament bid where they went on to earn a first-round win.
Put in a pod with No. 1 Endicott College, hosting Eastern Connecticut State and NAC champions Husson University, the Hawks closed a 4-1 win over the No. 22 ranked Warriors to open the tournament, pitting a winner's bracket matchup against the top ranked Gulls. The team proved their offense was legitimately one of the best in the country in the matchup, scoring 12 runs against an elite pitching staff — the most runs Endicott has let up all season.
Seay's team went on to rank 16th in the country in hits (523), 17th in runs (402) and 37th in runs per game (8.6). Earlier in the year, the club set a program record in runs scored and run differential after beating Fredonia, 30-2 in seven innings.
Seay, also named to his first SUNYAC Coach of the Year recognition, coached a record five All-SUNYAC recipients this past spring, including Tommy Kreider who earned his second-straight first team selection, while also touting five All-Region III selections which included a second-straight first-team honor for Kreider with the junior then becoming the program's first ever All-American selection. Additionally, he coached the program's first ever All-Region Defensive Team recipient in junior Michael Ascanio who had a breakout season in his second year with the program after transferring following his freshman season from SUNYAC rival SUNY Plattsburgh.
The 31 wins this season was also a program best, along with a .660 win-percentage that landed third best all-time and the highest since the 1981 season. Seay's Hawks also went on to earn their first road series sweep of SUNY Oswego — third ever against the program, and claimed their first wins over Cortland on its home field, which came in the conference tournament final.
The team continued to excel in the classroom under Seay's tuteledge. Kreider was recently named as the program's first SUNYAC Baseball Scholar Athlete of the Year while 21 Hawks were honored on the SUNYAC Commissioner's Academic Honor Roll, the most by any team. For the semester, the team had a cumulative team GPA of 3.36 which was the highest among qualifying male sports for the department this past spring.
The ABCA/ATEC Regional Coaches of the Year are selected by members of the ABCA All-America & Coach of the Year Committees in all nine divisions with Seay joining Division III honorees from Region I, Colby's Jesse Woods; Region II, Bryan Haley's Endicott; Region IV, Misericordia's Pete Egbert; Region V, Salisbury's Troy Brohawn; Region VI, Randolph-Macon's Ray Hedrick; Region VII, Denison's Mike Deegan; Region VIII, Hanover's Grant Bellak; Region IX, Wisconsin-Whitewater's John Vodenlich; and Region X, La Verne's Scott Winterburn.
To read the official press release, click here.
