A disappointing weekend of baseball at Seton Hill couldn’t keep the Griffins down for long. Of course, being rewarded with a top seed in the NCAA Division II regionals helped with the pain of losing out on a conference title.

But a trip to the ice cream stand was just the ointment for a smarting bunch that was coming off a best-of-three setback to unranked Bloomsburg in the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Tournament championship series Friday and Saturday.

“Sunday we went out for ice cream as a team,” Seton Hill coach Marc Marizzaldi said Wednesday, a day before the start of the NCAA Division II Atlantic Region Tournament at the University of Charleston (W.Va.).

“I still owed the guys ice cream. I told them we could go if they hit back-to-back home runs this season, and they did that a couple times, so I needed to make good on that promise.”

On Sunday night, the team “bonded,” as Marizzaldi put it, by streaming a selection show for the 42 teams that made up the eight regional tournament fields.

“Watching that together and seeing us get the No. 1 seed in the region, I think, was really good for our guys,” he said. “It kind of shifted their focus and forced them to think of what’s next.”

Marizzaldi gave his players time off Sunday and Monday before returning them to their usual practice routine Tuesday, prior to the team’s departure for Charleston.

“Tuesday became a little more hectic,” he said.

Following a two-year absence, No. 4 Seton Hill returns to the regional this year as the top seed. The Griffins climbed two spots this week in the National College Baseball Writers’ Association poll, despite its second two-game losing streak to close out the PSAC Tournament.

Losing just once in a while was a rarity for the Griffins, who are making their 10th appearance in the regional tournament and second as a No. 1 seed.

“It’s something to be proud of, being picked No. 1,” Marizzaldi said. “It shows we were rewarded for our entire body of work throughout the season.”

Seton Hill also entered the Atlantic regional in 2012 as a top seed, part of a run of nine seasons (2010-18) in which the Griffins earned regional bids.

The Griffins will open play Thursday against the winner of an earlier game between fourth-seeded Bloomsburg (23-16) and fifth-seeded Charleston (W.Va.).

The other first-round game features second-seeded No. 20 Millersville (28-13) and third-seeded West Virginia State (32-8), the Mountain East Conference Tournament champion.

The winner of the Atlantic Region Tournament, a three-day event that could need a fourth day Sunday to play a final game, will advance to the Division II Baseball Championships, also known as “the World Series,” from June 5-12 at the USA Baseball National Training Complex in Cary, N.C.

“That’s been the goal from Day 1,” Marizzaldi said. “Once you get to this point, though, there are no cupcakes. Everyone has earned their way here through either a good season or a good (conference) tournament. It doesn’t matter where you’re seeded.”

That was quite evident last weekend at the SHU Baseball Complex, where Seton Hill managed a total of just 12 hits in the three-game series, winning the first 7-5 on the strength of Tyler Peterson’s grand slam, then falling victim two a pair of sparkling, complete-game pitching performances by Bloomsburg’s Michael Standen and Jared Marshman.

“Unfortunately, you don’t get to pick the time when a slump happens,” Marizzaldi said.

Its recent hitting woes aside, Seton Hill rebounded from a team tragedy some 16 months ago, when freshman pitcher Maclean Maund was killed on Jan. 25, 2020, in a vehicle crash on Route 130 in Hempfield.

Maund helped to lead Penn-Trafford to the 2019 WPIAL Class 6A championship before enrolling at Seton Hill.

“I’m just the biggest fan of our kids right now,” Marizzaldi said. “I know better than anybody what they’ve gone through, and I just want to see these guys playing together and keeping advancing. Their bond shows how much they care about each other. I hope they can go out and play hard and be rewarded. I want to see it for them.”

Copyright ©2025— Trib Total Media, LLC (TribLIVE.com)