By Evans Erilus

FORT MYERS, Fla. —

Everything about the spring season screams new beginnings: spring cleaning, spring break and most importantly, baseball.

For the Northeastern baseball team, however, its hope is that this beginning will transform into a new tradition.

With an assist from the administration, which has developed a good corporate relationship with the Red Sox, the Huskies faced off against the Boston Red Sox in an exhibition contest last Friday evening for the first time since 1977. An opportunity for the Huntington Dogs to face off against the most important franchise in New England was not lost on the team during pre-game activities.

“The total experience is what they get out of it,” said Northeastern coach Neil McPhee, who is entering his 19th season at the helm. “For these guys, you just hope that they don’t get too nervous, so that the adrenaline is pumping so much that they don’t perform in a relaxed way, because let’s face it, they’re going be on NESN, and they’re gonna be 10,000 people here. It’s gonna be a terrific fun experience and that’s how I want them to look at it.”

That does not mean, however, that the players didn’t hope to accomplish certain goals.

“I just want to strike a few of them out, man,” said starting pitcher Justin Hedrick. “Right now, we’re out there, playing with them and shootin’ it with them, and it’s cool.”

He paused, and then cracked, “I’ll try not to make them look too bad; I’m rooting for them later down the road.”

Still, the squad realized the importance, or lack thereof, of the contest in the grand scheme of things, and took a more nostalgic approach towards the game.

“Fun, like coach told us before the game,” said junior hurler Devin Monds, “that’s the most important thing in this match up. Obviously, you want to go out there and battle every time you step onto the field, but just have some fun.”

McPhee also saw the game as an opportunity for some of Northeastern’s studs to gauge themselves against some of best ballplayers in the land.

“We have four or five players, maybe even a few more, who most likely will get their opportunity to play professional baseball,” he said. “Those guys, talent-wise, down the road, yeah, who knows, they could be big leaguers. Hopefully, you saw players out here performing well under those circumstances.”

Responding under pressure is nothing new to the Huskies, who relied on pitching and opportunistic hitting to advance to the postseason last year. Sound a bit familiar?

“The biggest similarities I see between us and the Sox is staff,” Hedrick said. “Our pitching staff is probably one of the best pitching staffs coming out of Northeastern since I’ve been here. It’s always been good, and this year it’s really good. Everybody can step up and make a start and win a game, and our bats are really good. If they just score a couple of runs for us, we should be able to beat anybody. Same thing with the Red Sox. You’ve got Schilling to shut’em down, Pedro, Lowe, Byung-Hyun, Wakefield. Any one of those guys can do the job.”

Koslowski agreed.

“We have great pitching, and we get the hits when we need them,” he said. “[And] we play good all-around defense.”

Not surprisingly, the team foresees improved success at Fenway and at Friedman.

“From a fan standpoint, I think the Sox picking up Schilling and Foulke were the two best acquisitions of the winter,” McPhee said. “I believe they’re going to be a better team than last year and better than they were against the Yankees.”

As for his own team’s prospects in light of being selected as the top team in the America East Conference Preseason poll, McPhee added, “Coming off last year, with the pitching we have and the positional players, on paper we look very strong,” he said, “But you don’t play the game with a line-up, you’ve got to go and play it on the field.

“We have a lot of confidence, I think the team understands and we’re approaching this year as a more difficult season because the toughest thing in team sports to do is repeat a championship. To this point, the team is playing very well, is pitching well and playing good defense. The hitting will come around.”

As for the game, Northeastern lost 7-0. The reaction of the group was mixed, but all expressed gratitude.

“I couldn’t wait to face Curt Schilling,” said Paul Koslowski, a senior first baseman and pitcher. “Kevin Millar gave us a little scouting report earlier; first pitch will probably be a fastball, 92-94 miles per hour on the outside corner. That’s all I was looking for; I don’t know about my chances on the other pitches.”

Whatever Millar said, it must have worked; Koslowski smacked a single off of the former Diamondback.

Justin Hedrick, who started the game for Northeastern, agreed.

“I was pumped,” he said. “It was a great night atmosphere, the game was on NESN, and to start it against the Red Sox. That’s a privilege that anybody in the whole world should want. I feel honored.”