By Zolan Kanno-Youngs, News Correspondent
After a win in the series opener and a rained out game Saturday, Northeastern defeated Richmond 8-2 the next day to complete the shortened series sweep.
“Obviously, Richmond has an incredible offense this year, they lead the nation in homeruns,” junior pitcher Kevin Ferguson said. “However, our pitching coach, Kevin Cobb, set a good scouting report on them. We got them early with off speed and made good pitches when it counted.”
Ferguson struck out eight and did not let up a run to move his ERA to 1.72 and improve to 4-0.
“Kevin’s a good example of a player maturing and developing in to the talent he came in to the program with. He is a three-pitch pitcher who commands the strike zone,” head coach Neil McPhee said. “He is now pitching in the manner that we saw him in high school.”
The Huskies started the game with a three-run first inning. Junior catcher Jon Leroux pushed it to a 2-0 lead by bringing home Puttress on a ground ball. After Richmond freshman pitcher Ryan Cook walked freshman infielder Jason Vosler, freshman first baseman Rob Fonseca brought home Miller with a single to left field.
The Huskies added to their lead in the second inning when Barbosa batted in sophomore outfielder Connor Lyons, who walked to start the inning. Vosler made it a 5-0 lead in the fifth with an RBI single.
“We just kept putting runs on the board and making things happen offensively,” Vosler said. “[The freshman] have been hitting pretty well but the older kids have also had a huge impact too. I think it’s just been a team effort.”
Barbosa gave his team another run in the sixth, after driving home sophomore infielder Oliver Hart.
After seven shutout innings, freshman pitcher Nick Berger relieved Ferguson and gave up two runs to the Spiders in the eighth. The Huskies matched those two runs in the ninth with two runs of their own, making it 8-2.
Even though Richmond scored the first run of Friday’s series opener on a solo home run hit by junior outfielder Matt Zink, the Huskies responded with a six run third inning and ultimately won 15-10.
The first run came off of a triple by Barbosa that brought home freshman infielder Michael Foster, who singled earlier in the inning. Both players had three hits in the game.
Leroux singled up the middle to load the bases in the first inning. With two outs and bases loaded, the freshman hammered the ball to right center field for his first career grand slam.
Fonseca followed Vosler’s home run with a long ball of his own to push the score to a 6-1 Northeastern lead.
“That naturally is a bit of a surprise that our freshman, seemingly so many of them [five], are playing regularly and succeeding regularly,” McPhee said. “In the sport of baseball, they will come up against pitching that they haven’t experienced before at the high school level. We’re talking about the difference between an 18-year-old coming in to the program versus a 22-year-old senior veteran.”
The Spiders responded in the bottom of the third when senior catcher Chris Cowell hit a three run shot off of Leenhouts to left field.
Leenhouts struck out the next two batters and the Huskies broke it open in the seventh, scoring nine runs on five hits. It started with a two-run single by Miller. Foster followed with a double to center and Leroux then brought home Miller and Puttress off of an RBI single.
However, the Spiders scored six runs total in a single inning to make it 15-10.
Senior pitcher Sam Berg walked the bases loaded in the eighth, but Berger came in to get the final out of the inning on a strikeout and closed the game with a one-two-three inning.“Obviously we’re 11-7 which is a very good start for this team being as young as it is,” McPhee said Sunday. ”We’re going in the right direction but we’ve only played two conference weekends so there’s a long, long way to go.”
