By Peter Conroy
The bad news for the Northeastern baseball team is that this will be the first season since 1997 without a member of the Pena clan, having graduated Omar last year, who followed in the footsteps of older brothers Pedro and Carlos (who is now the starting first baseman for the Detroit Tigers). The good news for coach Neil McPhee’s club is that the loss of Pena is the only significant subtraction from last year’s America East champions.
Armed with that knowledge, fellow AE coaches crowned Northeastern the preseason favorite to repeat as league champions, as the Huskies garnered four first place votes and 59 overall points from the other seven AE teams (coaches can’t vote for their own team). Maine came in a close second with the other four first place votes, and 57 points, overall.
The Huskies rode a late charge into the playoffs, posting a 12-4 May record and a 2-1 opening round victory over Vermont. Northeastern split a pair of one-run games in the best-of-three championship series against Stony Brook, before dismantling the Seawolves, 11-0, in the series finale.
The AE title gave the Huskies a berth in the double elimination NCAA championship, where they lost a tough, 11-8 decision to perennial power Lousiana State University and bowed out in the second game, 12-6, to the University of North Carolina, Wilmington.
The Husky pitching corps, a year older and completely intact from last year, will boast a three-man rotation of Justin Hedrick, Jordan Thompson and Devin Monds. McPhee was hesitant to deem one of the three the ace of the staff, saying that they all have the stuff to be No. 1 pitchers. Hedrick racked up the most innings last season, with 70, and led the AE in complete games with seven. He came up with a three-hit complete game victory against Vermont in the opening round of the AE tournament. Hedrick has the most “stuff” on the staff, with a fastball, slider, curve and change. McPhee calls his breaking stuff the best on the team.
Jordan Thompson has a fastball that was clocked at 91 in an appearance this year in Florida. He also has an excellent change and solid slider. Thompson helped bury Stony Brook in the AE finale with a complete game shutout.
McPhee called Devin Monds more of a prototypical power pitcher, with a fastball in the low 90s and a good changeup. He is also developing a knuckle curve.
This year the league has switched the game scheduling, with a nine-inning and seven-inning-game on Saturday, followed by another nine-inning game on Sunday. Last season teams would play two seven-inning double headers on both Saturday and Sunday. The new format will force McPhee to use his bullpen more often, which will spell junior hurler Jim Madison, who posted a 3-3 record in five starts last season. The wild card this season may be freshman Adam Ottavino, who has 19 strikeouts in 19 innings with an earned run average of 1.89.
“[Ottavino] is pitching like a rotation guy right now, we don’t have any plans to put him in the rotation as yet,” said McPhee of the Brooklyn, NY native. “But he’s throwing as well as anyone on the team.”
Calling the game will be Matt Morizio, a sophomore with the archetype catcher’s build, although he was recruited as a shortstop. Morizio was moved to backstop as a freshman and has impressed pro scouts with his defensive ability and arm. He has thrown out 8-of-13 attempted base stealers so far this season.
McPhee reserved some of his highest praise for shortstop Arman Sidhu, who he called “possibly the best defensive player we’ve ever had in the program,” adding that, “he’s one of the few players on a team that can actually win you a game defensively. He makes those kind of game-winning plays, and me makes them quite regularly.”
Not that Sidhu is all glove and no stick, the 6-1 sophomore was fourth on the team with a .325 average.
Paul Koslowski’s season ended prematurely when he broke his hand diving into a base May 11 against Pace. At the time, he was batting .330 with an on-base-percentage of .431, which was tops on the team. The senior is completely healed for this season, and will also do some closing.
Miguel Paquette made a strong showing for himself, filling in for Koslowski in the last third of the season. The junior was named the Most Outstanding Player of the America East Tournament after driving in seven runs in four games with a BA of .400 and one homer. Paquette is likely to see some time as DH.
The hot corner will be filled by last year’s Most Valuable Player, Tim Bush.
McPhee called Bush “a player who you want the bat in his hand or the ball hit to him when the game is on the line”. Bush led the team in batting average (.353), RBI (36) and slugging percentage (.540). He also gets the call as the NU closer. In 10 relief appearances last season, Bush recorded a 1.40 ERA, two wins and two saves while holding opponents to a .203 average. In three appearances this season he has yet to give up a hit or an earned run.
Which brings up the one question mark in the Husky lineup, the hole vacated by Omar Pena at second base.
“No question, losing Omar at second base is definitely a spot where we need more consistency at, both defensively and offensively,” said McPhee. “We are trying to find that out with a couple players.” Namely Brian Nutting and Eric Murray, who have shared time at the two bag thus far. McPhee likes the fact that Nutting is a righty and Murray is a lefty, giving him a pair of options to throw at opposing pitchers. Nutting played in 26 games last season, as both a third baseman and DH, batting .288 with nine RBI. Murray has made the most of his time this season, with nine hits in 21 at bats and 5 runs batted in.
“The outfield as a whole is one of the real strengths of the program, they are all veterans, they all run well and they have very good college arms,” said McPhee. “And they are all very good athletes, so we can interchange them almost without noticing any kind of a difference.”
Sophomore Chris Emanuele started every game last year and was called the most natural athlete of the group by McPhee. The sophomore finished the season trailing only Tim Bush in batting average at .335. He was white-hot in the NCAA Regionals, with a batting average of .857, slugging percentage of 1.714 and on-base percentage of .875, each stat tops among all players. Co-captains Jeff Heriot and Brad Czarnowski will patrol the outfield with Emanuele. McPhee noted that Heriot had the most tools of any of his OF’s, while Czarnowski, in his second year of captaincy, was dubbed the “guru” of the outfield.
Michael Steinberg got most of his at bats as a designated hitter last season, batting .258, but will also see some time in the outfield.
McPhee forsees a pair of close games against league rival Maine, and predicts the contests will be decided by a run either way, depending on who gets the breaks offensively. He also noted that Albany is off to a hot start, and Stony Brook returned their entire team.
Czarnowski realizes that being the defending title holders and the preseason favorites to repeat means that they have a target on their back.
“We have to look at it as everyone is coming after us,” he said. “We can’t take anyone lightly, just take it game by game, pitch by pitch.”
