By Jill Saftel, News Staff
A last-minute scheduling change brought the Boston College baseball team to Friedman Diamond on Wednesday for Northeastern’s home opener, but with a 10-1 defeat at the hands of the Huskies, the Eagles might have been better off staying in Chestnut Hill.
Northeastern, fresh off a Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) win at Old Dominion University on Sunday, turned on the offense in its first game at home. The Huskies are 9-6 overall and 1-2 in the conference following a 2-1 series split with Old Dominion last weekend with Friday and Saturday losses finishing 11-4 and 10-8, respectively, followed by a 2-1 Sunday win. Previously, the Huskies took a 5-0 sweep at the Snowbird Baseball Classic in Port Charlotte, Fla. from Mar. 1 through Mar. 6.
Wednesday’s game against the Eagles came to fruition after Brown University baseball canceled. That change and rare warm Boston weather worked for NU, as the pitching and offensive production picked up.
With sophomore pitcher Isaac Lippert starting, batter after batter was turned away for BC. Lippert faced the minimum number of batters through six innings and earned the win after shutting out the Eagles through seven innings. Head coach Neil McPhee said that the low pitch count will probably allow Lippert to pitch for the team out of the bullpen Sunday during conference play, giving NU another arm in the series.
Fellow pitchers junior Matt Cook and senior Dylan Maki entered the game in relief for the remaining two innings. Cook took care of the eighth inning and Maki had the ninth, allowing one run resulting from a sacrifice fly coupled with two strikeouts.
At the plate, it was Northeastern’s top three hitters who shined brightest. Junior outfielder Aaron Barbosa went 2-for-3 with one run and one RBI, while sophomore infielders Michael Foster and Jason Vosler each accounted for three RBIs and one run. Foster went 2-for-5 while Vosler went 2-for-4.
“There were two keys to today’s game,” McPhee said. “One was the pitching of Isaac Lippert, gets us into the seventh inning, low pitch count, worked quick, pitched the minimum 19 batters. The second aspect of the game was very positive, we bunched hits in the seventh inning and that’s something we hadn’t been doing for the last four or five games. So those two aspects to the game are key in terms of getting us going again.”
Vosler got the Huskies on the board with a single in the fourth, bringing Barbosa home for the 1-0 lead.
Northeastern turned on the offense in the seventh, producing seven runs. Barbosa’s single was the first of six consecutive hits from the Huskies. Vosler and Foster highlighted the seventh, with a triple and double, respectively. Junior left fielder Brad Burcroff also contributed with a double of his own.
McPhee credited his top three hitters and Burcroff with much of Northeastern’s offensive success.
“The top of the order and middle of the order, that’s the part of any team’s batting lineup that you want to produce the runs and that’s what we did today,” he said. “Them coming through to put the game out of reach was very, very positive for us.”
The Huskies return to conference play this weekend at George Mason University.
“We’ve played well throughout the early weeks of the season, now we’re in the second weekend of the conference and we want to start winning each weekend as we go along,” McPhee said. “You couldn’t ask for a better midweek game going into conference play.”
