\u201cThe interview [catcher Adam] Agresti gave afterward about doing this for the alumni, for the students and for everybody, that goes a long way for us old folk to have them say nice things about all of us. It\u2019s a pleasure watching northeastern boys \u2014 no expectations from anybody \u2014 surprise people. That was us way back when. Nobody knew who the hell we were. We went out there, we competed and that\u2019s what they\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNow,\u201d he added, \u201cthey\u2019re two victories away from getting back to Omaha, which would be a helluva story after 46 years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last weekend, St. John\u2019s won the Tallahassee Regional, upsetting No. 10 Florida State twice to advance.<\/p>\n
They will face national No. 7 seed Alabama this weekend in Tuscaloosa, Ala., with the winner of the three-game series booking a trip to Omaha, Neb., for the College World Series.<\/p>\n
![\"Former](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Frank-Viola-2.jpg\")
Former MLB stars Frank Viola (above) and John Franco are reveling in St. John\u2019s run to the NCAA Super Regionals, one step from the College World Series. The pair helped the Johnnies reach the CWS in Omaha, Neb., in 1980. St. John’s Athletics<\/p>\n
It has elicited pride in a baseball program that has been mostly dormant in recent years. <\/p>\n
But St. John\u2019s has a proud history, counting Viola, John Franco, C.J. Nitkowski, Joe Panik, Rich Aurilia and Craig Hansen among its most famous alums.<\/p>\n
\u201cYears from now, St. John\u2019s fans are going to remember beating Florida State in Tallahassee the same way we remember some of the great moments in program history that already happened,\u201d said Hansen, a former first-round pick of the Red Sox who played for St. John\u2019s from 2003-05. \u201cTo get St. John\u2019s baseball back on the map the way those guys did this past weekend is phenomenal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hansen is particularly happy for head coach Mike Hampton. <\/p>\n
Hampton was an assistant in Hansen\u2019s playing days for the Red Storm, and had to deal with taking over the program from Ed Blankmeyer during the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n
![\"Former](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/John-Franco.jpg\")
Former Mets great John Franco was one of the leaders of the St. John\u2019s
team that reached the College World Series in 1980. St. John’s Athletics<\/p>\n
He also dealt with a rash of injuries that sidetracked potentially promising seasons. <\/p>\n
Hansen runs Pro Pitch Labs in Garden City, L.I., and has gotten to know some of the pitchers on the roster through his baseball performance and motion analysis center.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe conversations I have with fellow alumni, we\u2019re so excited to see how this group of individuals is representing St. John\u2019s and what St. John\u2019s stands for as a whole,\u201d Hansen said. \u201cEvery game they were down, they could\u2019ve packed it in, but those kids have fight, and I\u2019m very excited to watch the games this weekend and watch them fight now against the No. 7 team in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n
Said Franco, the former Met: \u201cThese guys are a bunch of grinders. People don\u2019t give enough credit to the guys up in the Northeast because of the weather. Most of the teams down South and Southwest are outside playing in January and February, where these kids are in the gym or they\u2019re outside on the turf field fielding ground balls in the freezing cold. That\u2019s what brings out the toughness in the kids.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tYour weekly dispatch from the No. 1 source on the Johnnies\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside St. John’s by Zach Braziller, exclusively on Sports+.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
The Johnnies last reached the Super Regionals in 2012, losing to Arizona. <\/p>\n
That team, though, won 40 games and was nationally ranked throughout the year. <\/p>\n
These Johnnies started 1-10 and were a No. 4 seed \u2014 out of four \u2014 in the Tallahassee Regional. They were picked to finish fourth in the Big East. <\/p>\n
Just winning the Big East Tournament to reach the NCAA tourney was an accomplishment. <\/p>\n
But they had bigger plans in mind.<\/p>\n
This weekend, St. John\u2019s will again be a major underdog, facing a loaded southern school that is expected to advance with ease. <\/p>\n
Alabama is led by superstar shortstop Justin LeBron, a projected top-20 MLB draft pick, and went undefeated during the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament.<\/p>\n
But Viola has already seen St. John\u2019s shock another powerhouse, and he sees some of the same belief his team had way back in 1980.<\/p>\n
\u201c[They] still have that New York hard-ass attitude. You mention St. John\u2019s, that\u2019s the first thing you think about,\u201d Viola said. \u201cTypical New Yorkers: You tell them they can\u2019t do something, they\u2019ll tell you, \u2018Watch this.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The text message chat began heating up a few weeks ago, entering the Big East Tournament. It was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":257675,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100496,9,11,10,319,3363],"class_list":["post-257674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-frank-viola","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-sports","tag-st-johns-red-storm"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257674\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}