CLICK HERE to read original article, written by Portsmouth Herald Staff Writer Mike Whaley

Ben Gravel's baseball stint at Saint Joseph's College in Standish, Maine, did not take the traditional four-season route.

In fact, it took five.

Because the COVID-19 pandemic cut short the 2020 spring season, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) awarded spring athletes in all divisions the option of an extra year of eligibility.

Gravel, a 2016 Spaulding High School graduate, was coming back for a fifth year anyway to pursue a Master's in Education, so he figured why not play.

The Monks, led by Gravel, were gaining steam going into the Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) tournament with a 16-11 record after a 2-7 start (four one-run losses), including a 6-2 conference mark. COVID-19 complications on campus led to their season being cancelled.

The pandemic giveth and the pandemic taketh away.

"I was feeling really good about our team and (Gravel) was right in the middle of it," said coach Will Sanborn. "He was the anchor of the whole thing this year. He started off swinging the bat really well from Day 1. He was so consistent all the way through."

St. Joe's won 14 of its final 18 games led by Gravel who paced the team in many offensive categories - average (.365), RBIs (19), hits (35), doubles (7), triples (2), home runs (2) and on-base percentage (.441). He will undoubtedly receive postseason honors when the GNAC All-Conference teams are released next week.

Gravel ended his career batting .316 in exactly 100 games.

"I could just play him in that three-hole every day," Sanborn said. "He gave us good, quality at-bats and drove in a lot of runs. Our team was really coming together around him. The pieces were starting to fit in."

Then things went south. First, a St. Joe's player tested positive for COVID after a doubleheader sweep of River University on April 17 triggering a seven-day shutdown per conference protocols. In addition, a significant amount of COVID cases on campus led to a significant amount of quarantines, according to Sanborn. The school decided that the best way to try and save commencement for the seniors was to send all the underclassmen home. That effectively ended the spring sports season at the Maine school.

The GNAC  baseball tournament is currently going on without Saint Joseph's, as well as Rivier, Dean College, and Colby-Sawyer College, all of whom opted out because of COVID.

"It stinks getting cut short," Gravel said. "It's what everybody plays for. As athletes, everybody wants to compete and win the championship. Not getting a chance to do that really stinks."

It's been an unusual five-year odyssey at St. Joe's for Gravel, who came to the Monks after a solid baseball career in Rochester. He was part of Spaulding High's 2015 Division I state championship team, as well as a pair of Rochester Post 7 Senior Legion championship squads (2015-2016).

Saint Joseph's was the only college that took a serious interest in Gravel.

"I thought he certainly had some good baseball potential," Sanborn said. "He had a good swing; a pretty solid high school player."

The thing that Sanborn found out quickly that really made him buy into recruiting Gravel was "what a quality young man he is and how committed he is to baseball. He has all those intangibles. That led me to think this guy can really develop."

Gravel proved Sanborn right.

He hit .414 with 11 RBIs in 17 games as a freshman reserve before taking over in left field as a sophomore. He played in 39 games as the Monks went 29-13, losing in the conference championship to Suffolk. Gravel batted .299 with 10 doubles, 23 runs scored and 24 RBIs.

The next two seasons, however, were disappointing. A fluke wrist injury incurred during a live preseason hitting session caused him to miss the first 33 games of the 2019 campaign. Gravel ended up playing in eight games as the Monks went 33-12, winning the GNAC tournament championship and advancing to the NCAA Division III tournament.

"That really affected him all the way through," coach Sanborn said. "Hand or wrist injuries can be tough."

Gravel kept it positive.

"That was a really good team with a lot of those New Hampshire players," he said. "All my best friends. That was fun. Even being hurt, it was fun watching them play."

Included on that team were former Spaulding teammates Anthony DiPrizio and Drew Healey, who he played with all five years at St. Joe's. "I've been playing with Drew, I think, since we were 8 years old," Gravel said. "I played every season with him my whole life."

Like Gravel, Healey played 100 career games for the Monks. He had a .315 career batting average.

In 2020, Gravel's senior season, COVID shut down Saint Joseph's season after 11 games.

Over the 2019 and 2020 seasons, Gravel played a total of 17 games. "He certainly had to deal with some adversity over the last couple of years," coach Sanborn said.

Gravel graduated in 2020 with a degree in marketing and sports management. Towards the end of his studies he wasn't sure if that's the direction he wanted to take, so he made the decision to return for a fifth year, regardless of what happened in 2020 baseball wise, to pursue a Master's in Education to become a physical education teacher. He'll need at least another year to finish up that degree.

But, of course, with the extra year of eligibility, it was a "no-brainer" for Gravel to take a couple extra classes in the spring so he could play baseball.

One thing Gravel did during his two lost seasons was to religiously follow a pretty strict training and strengthening regimen.

He recalls his sophomore year when he was an every-day player.

"I realized towards the end of the season that my body felt tired," Gravel said. "You could probably see that in games played if you look back. I started off strong. But I tapered off as the season went on. There was just a lack of preparation and a lack of strength at that point."

The St. Joe's strength and conditioning program helped him to build up his body.

"It paid off pretty big for me," he said. "It helps my body feel stronger throughout the season. Just playing 40-plus games can take a toll on your body, quite honestly."

This season he could see the results. "I was hitting well," Gravel said. "I was feeling good."

Sanborn said Gravel was also playing some pretty good defense in left field, an area that the coach thought he needed some improvement in.

"This was his best defensive year by far," Sanborn said. "He worked really hard to improve his speed and his quickness. He became a pretty darn good outfielder."

Gravel is wrapping up the semester at St. Joe's before heading back to New Hampshire to begin full-time work in Seabrook at Powerhouse Sports, run by respected Portsmouth baseball man Mike Montville. He says he'll work in player development, do some coaching and help with the business side of things.

St. Joe's conference record tied for first in the GNAC standings with Anna Maria, the tournament's top seed. The two split a regular-season set. Gravel is still following what's going on in the conference, which started its tournament on Tuesday and winds up this weekend with a best-of-three-games championship series.

"For better or worse, I've been watching all the conference games going on (online)," he said. "I can't stop watching."

And wondering, no doubt, about what might have been.