By Jason Richland
The baseball season ended abruptly on Friday in Burlington, Vt. for the Northeastern Huskies.
The day began with promise as the Huskies defeated Binghamton the previous day, 7-3, in the double elimination America East conference tournament, but a 12-0 loss to Vermont in the afternoon and an extra innings 6-5 loss to Maine in the nightcap closed the door on Husky baseball for Northeastern’s seniors.
Pitchers Jim Madison, Matt Pyrik and Devin Monds, first baseman Miguel Paquette, third baseman Tim Bush and outfielder Jeff Heriot all ended their Husky careers on a two-out single in the tenth inning off true-freshman Kris Dabrowiecki.
“To end the season like that, it was especially hard for (the seniors), we’ve played our last college games,” Monds said
Monds has the best chance to continue his baseball career professionally, having been drafted out of high school in the 47th round, 1406th overall in the 2001 amateur draft by the Los Angeles Dodgers. Monds has spoken with an agent and is garnering interest in the upcoming baseball draft from the Chicago Cubs, San Francisco Giants, Cincinnati Reds and Milwaukee Brewers.
In 2004, the Huskies lost the first two games of the America East conference tournament to end the season, but in 2005 the feeling is quite different.
Last season, the Huskies lost their top starting pitchers, Jordan Thomson and Justin Hedrick, both are now members of the San Francisco Giants organization.
Despite the loss of Monds, the Huskies will return in 2006 with a pitching staff featuring sophomore Adam Ottavino (8-4, 3.09) who set a new Husky record with 106 strikeouts in the season and earned America East Pitcher of the Year honors with a 6-0 conference record with 1.96 ERA in seven starts.
“We still have three starters,” Ottavino said. “The main losses are the bats. It’s hard to replace those guys, but pitching is the thing you need most and if you have that you should be able to fill in the hitters. With our core of pitchers, we will be fine next year.”
Dabrowiecki (6-3, 3.86 ERA) earned a spot in next season’s rotation with his pitching and was named to the America East All-Rookie team and sophomore Dave Pellegrine (5-3, 5.20) pitched well in his first season as a starter, fanning 73 batters in 83 innings.
Of the Huskies starting lineup, only Paquette, Bush and Heriot won’t be returning. Those three hitters combined for 19 homers and 86 RBI.
The team’s core of juniors, Arman Sidhu, Matt Morizio, Chris Emanuele, Brian Nutting and Jeff Maher combined for 21 home runs and 126 RBI.
The Huskies finished their last season in the America East with a 26-23 record overall with a 14-6 conference record and a regular season conference title. Northeastern will be competing in the Colonial Athletic Association next season against baseball powerhouses such as the University of North Carolina – Wilmington (27-11),Virginia Commonwealth (18-9) and George Mason (18-7).
