STONY BROOK, N.Y. — The year was 1995. "Gangsta's Paradise" rang as the No. 1 song, gas ran you $1.15 a gallon, and Stony Brook baseball was coming off its first 20-win season in program history.
 
"We had most of our guys back from the 1994 season, with a couple key additions," then-assistant coach Kris Doorey said. He's now the head coach at SUNY Plattsburgh. "That team could win by outhitting or outpitching you… or sometimes, just with our confidence."
 
They would do a lot of winning that season. 30 wins was the exact number, the first of many for then-fifth-year head coach Matt Senk, leading to the program's first ever appearance in an NCAA Regional.

"That team was the true foundation for what this program has become today," Senk said. "They were trailblazers, catalysts... there aren't enough adjectives to describe what they did for this program. They are as big of a reason that this program is what it is today as anything."
 
Eight batters would hit over .300 on the season, with six of them eclipsing the .375 mark at the plate.
 
One of them, was a junior shortstop by the name of Joe Nathan, who hit .394 that year with a team-high 52 hits.
 
"We had a great team chemistry that season and hung out a lot away from the field as well," the future MLB All-Star said. "I still talk to most of them today."
 
It was Nathan who started the excitement that year, driving in all four runs with one swing to give the Seawolves a 4-3 victory over a D3 stalwart in Cortland, Coach Senk's alma mater.
 
"The tone was set that season [the grand slam Nathan hit] in Florida," Doorey added. "That put us on the national map that season."
 
He wasn't the only one making a name for himself, however. To his right played a freshman third baseman, who hit .398 on the season, Vin Causeman.
 
"I was expected to back up Nathan," he said. "I was so extremely fortunate to be accepted by the veterans of that team. I was fortunate enough to get an opportunity to get into the starting lineup and from that point on, I did whatever I could to not give it up."
 
He helped powerhouse an offense that batted nearly 90 points better than their opposition (.343 to .257) and drove in nearly double the runs (274 to 139). That came in handy in shootout wins over Susquehanna (16-14), California (13-11) and Staten Island (13-12).
 
They even put a 20-spot up on Lehman as part of a doubleheader sweep that had a total margin of 39-4.
 
"We knew every game, we had the best talent on the field, but we never took it for granted," then-junior Jason Cifuentes said. "We always played hard and fast. We never just 'threw our gloves on the field.'"
 
 
The season started hot, highlighted by the game-winning grand slam from Nathan, as the Seawolves stormed out of the gate with an 8-1 record.
 
"Coach Senk always wanted his players to achieve greatness on the field," Cifuentes added.
 
They would that year, alternating four wins with every loss through the team's first 15 games, expanding that 8-1 record to a 12-3 resume.
 
Then came the big push, a 14-game winning streak that spanned 20 days in April. They outscored opponents 165-59 and were exploding into the big time.
 
"That season was extremely special for all of us," Erik Haag, a junior simply known as Boog, said. "It was the culmination of the improvement we had shown as a team during that time."
 
The 1995 campaign was the first taste of national tournament exposure for the program, as they competed in the four-team New York Regional. After defeating Cortland once again 4-1 to open the double-elimination bracket, the Seawolves would fall in back to back games to be eliminated in third.
 
"I remember looking over at Coach right before the NCAA's started and said 'this is what we dream about," Haag added. "That year solidified us as a band of brothers and was as special a season as it gets."
 
The brothers had a great leader, a sentiment rarely disagreed by players who have joined the Seawolves program in the last 30 years.
 
"We knew what he wanted from us and if we didn't meet those needs, he would be straight with us," Nathan said. "He is a tough competitor and brought that to our team. That has stuck with me as I instill it in my kids now."
 
An assistant on his staff is still using those motives to this day.
 
"He taught me how to handle adversity and how to treat everyone fairly," Doorey said. "He is the reason I'm a college coach. He gave me such freedom to grow as a young coach. He has been, and always will be, my coach and mentor, but more importantly, my friend."