It was quite a spring for the Stetson Hatters on the baseball diamond, as the team completed its season just two wins short of the College Baseball World Series.

The team finished with 48 wins and 13 losses, including an 18-game winning streak en route to claiming the ASUN Conference championship, earning a spot among the nation’s best 64 teams and advancing beyond the NCAA Regionals, held for the first time ever in DeLand, Florida, with Stetson as the host.

The journey was dramatic — and, quite apparently, the team took all of Hatter Nation (emphasis on nationwide) along for the ride.

Alumni interest? It was a grand slam.

While Stetson’s Office of Alumni and Parent Engagement typically has held events in a few nearby cities, as the baseball team traveled there, the alumni office hustled to quickly create 15 “watch parties” in 12 cities, cites Woody O’Cain, the office’s assistant vice president. Also, “page views” on the office’s platforms for social media more than doubled in early June, with a June 6 post about upcoming watch parties reaching nearly 7,500 people.

“In cities where we didn’t host watch parties, we still saw people post on social media or email us with information about a watch party from Hawaii, Georgia, Chicago, California and even Ecuador,” O’Cain said.

On the broader social-media platforms of the Office of University Marketing (encompassing alumni as well as other Stetson community sectors), Twitter page views increased 270 percent May 27-June 9 compared to the previous two-week period, while general Twitter engagement during that span rose nearly 63 percent.

According to Director of Athletics Jeff Altier, while university impacts from baseball’s success largely were anecdotal in mid-June, without precise data assessments on enrollment and other areas to come later, notable upticks already were being felt in financial donations to the baseball program and merchandise sales.

The message Altier has received from alumni: “’Hey, we want to be a part of this, what you’re doing with the athletic program.’

“When I look at intercollegiate athletics for an institution, the greater the success, then the greater the exposure for the institution and the greater the value for the institution,” Altier concluded.