By Jimmy Brooks, News Staff
The baseball team dropped its home opener 6-4 as Brown University spoiled the Huskies’ debut at a renovated Friedman Diamond Tuesday.
Sophomore shortstop Jimmy Filter’s triple scored two baserunners, temporarily giving the Huskies a 2-1 lead. After a big third inning that featured two home runs for the Bears, the Huskies again found themselves behind 5-1 in a game that they could ultimately not tie up or win.
“You don’t beat a team when it’s down,” NU head coach Neil McPhee said. “You try to motivate them in a different way and I try to do that. I try to be upbeat, but at the same time tell it like it is [and] what our needs are to change the direction we’re going in.”
The loss drops the team to 2-12 on the year. In the first 14 games, the Huskies have scored 58 runs, the lowest total in the conference only to Hofstra, who has 57.
“The skill of hitting is a very difficult skill and so much is [based] on experience,” McPhee said. “We got some young players in our lineup, and they need to learn how to have at-bats against pitching at the Division I level, and that takes time.”
Before the Huskies could debut at Friedman Diamond, they traveled to North Carolina for a three-game series against UNC Wilmington – and dropped all three.
In the first of the three-game series, senior outfielder Jeff Dunlap helped the Huskies jump out to a 2-0 lead with a two-run shot, his second of the season. Yet the Huskies couldn’t retain the lead past the end of the inning, as the Seahawks responded with three runs of their own, taking over the lead.
Sophomore outfielder Jason Roth later tied the game back up for the Huskies, grounding out to second, but scoring sophomore catcher John Puttress.
However, the Seahawks regained a lead in the fifth inning that they would never lose. A late surge from the squad was not enough, as the Huskies fell short, dropping the contest by a final score of 6-5.
Despite the loss, Dunlap still maintains a high level of confidence in the team’s ability to win ballgames.
“I’m confident with the guys we have playing, and the guys we have throughout the whole team. We have exceptional pitching; it’s always good to know that even if you don’t play well the game will be close with other guys picking you up.”
Dunlap has played anything but poorly this season, boasting an impressive .349 batting average, alongside 3 home runs and 12 RBI’s.
McPhee praised Dunlap and junior co-captain Matt Miller, who leads the team in batting average (.370), and walks (six).
The senior continued his hot start to 2011 in the second game, scoring Miller with a double to left in the first inning. After building a 1-0 lead, the team turned to junior southpaw Drew Leenhouts, who yet again pitched masterfully, showing complete control over the plate through six innings.
Leenhouts gave up his only run in the second inning, allowing the Seahawks to tie up the game. From that point on, Leenhouts stifled the Seahawks, never picking up another earned run. Despite another great performance by Leenhouts, errors proved to be the Huskies’ fatal flaw; two errors lead to two Seahawk runs, giving UNC-Wilmington a handle on the game they never let go of.
McPhee and several players on the squad have stated that the top of the rotation is one of the strengths of this team. Yet pitching alone was not enough to win this second game in a series of three.
“If you’re going to win with one part of the game only, it generally is pitching,” McPhee said. “[In future games] we think we have the strength on the mound to turn it around. I can’t predict that, but that’s what the team and the coaching staff feels.”
The Huskies dropped the third game of the series 2-11, despite another early solo shot by Dunlap. After the Seahawks answered with a run of their own in the bottom of the first, the game remained even until the sixth inning, when they unloaded five runs on the Huskies. The Seahawks would eventually tack on five more runs before the game concluded, giving the team its sixth win in a row.
Next week, the Huskies will travel to Norfolk, Va., where they will face off against Old Dominion; the three-game series will be the Huskies second series of that length away from home in two weeks.
Shortly after, the Huskies will return to campus to square off against UConn at Friedman Diamond.
