By Zolan Kanno-Youngs, News Correspondent
After allowing Georgia State’s late rallies to beat them in the first two games of the weekend series had a rally of their own Sunday, scoring seven runs in the seventh inning and defeating the Panthers 13-4.
The Huskies opened the series Friday by allowing the Panthers to score 11 runs in the bottom of the ninth, giving up a nine-run lead.
“The key to Sunday’s game was Kevin Ferguson,” head coach Neil McPhee said. “He pitched a dominant game, start to finish.”
Junior pitcher Kevin Ferguson got the win for the Huskies and nearly notched a complete game. In eight and two-third innings, he allowed three earned runs on 10 hits with eight strikeouts.
Every Husky batter got a hit on Sunday and seven players recorded RBIs.
The game started scoreless until the Panthers scored on a squeeze play in the fifth inning. Georgia State junior infielder Roy Seltenrijch laid down a sacrifice bunt bringing home senior outfielder Landon Bennet from third.
The Huskies offense woke up in the seventh. With sophomore shortstop Oliver Hart on third base and sophomore outfielder Aaron Barbosa on first, junior catcher John Puttress singled to center field, bringing home Hart and advancing Barbosa to scoring position.
Another single by senior infielder Matt Miller scored Barbosa, and junior catcher John Leroux hit the fourth straight single of the game to bring around Puttress.
Panthers senior starter Ben Marshall’s trouble continued when first baseman Rob Fonseca drew a walk to load the bases for freshman infielder Alex McKeon, who singled to right field to bring home two runs and put the Huskies up 5-1.
“We’d been hitting all weekend,” McKeon said. “We were able to just climb up the pitches, hit some balls hard and when the bullpen came, we just kept it rolling.”
Sophomore outfielder Connor Lyons closed the top of the seventh inning by tripling to right center and bringing home the sixth and seventh runs of the inning, taking a 7-1 lead.
The Panthers tried to close the game in the bottom of the seventh by scoring two runs but the Huskies once again responded. Leroux hit a double to score Barbosa, and freshman infielder Jason Vosler hit a sacrifice fly to score Miller to push the score to 9-3.
“I go back to what could have happened from Friday night on. If we mentally collapse and we’re not in to the game mentally, that’s what the coach is worried about,” McPhee said. “We did what every coach would hope to do and that is we got a huge inning, a lot of clutch hits and we broke the game open.”
Vosler continued his hot start to his rookie season going 3-5 with two home runs and four RBIs in the weekend series’ opening loss, 13-12 Friday.
“There wasn’t a different mentality going into that game,” Vosler said. “We all just got hot at the same time and we were all seeing the ball so everybody was doing a great job at hitting.”
The first Vosler home run came in the fifth inning as a solo shot putting Northeastern up 1-0. The Huskies increased their lead in the sixth when Fonseca singled down the left field line to score Puttress, followed by a three-run long-ball by Vosler to clear the bases.
After Georgia State senior outfielder Joey Wood doubled to right center to score two runs, Northeastern came back in the top of the seventh to score three additional runs.
The Huskies scored two more runs in the eighth after a 30 minute lighting delay, and Fonseca recorded a home run in the top of the ninth making it 12-2.
Then came the ninth inning Panther comeback.
The Huskies sent junior pitcher Michael Murphy and sophomore pitcher Mike Hanlon to the mound but the Panthers to scored 11 runs off of nine hits.
“Naturally, anyone is going to be devastated walking off the field with a nine run lead in the ninth inning. The key here is to not let it affect the next couple of games,” McPhee said. “It’s a horror that happens and it happened but that is not the kind of loss that makes a coach upset at their team.”
The Huskies lost another close game in the second game of the series Saturday. Georgia State scored four runs in the seventh and eighth innings to come from behind once again and win 9-8.
Senior infielder Brandon Williams and freshman catcher Joel Van Asch had two RBIs a piece for the Panthers.
The Huskies bright spot came from their freshman with McKeon and Fonseca each hitting homeruns.
“It was the body language, the hustle, the competitiveness, being in the game mentally that we were most concerned with,” McPhee said. “That’s what you’re always worried about when you get that loss we got on Friday night. We saw [no problems with] that on Saturday or Sunday. We left [Georgia State] feeling good about ourselves and totally frustrated because it could have been a three game sweep and it wasn’t.”
