By Jake Fischer, News Correspondent
When the Northeastern Huskies baseball team welcomed the James Madison University Dukes to Friedman Diamond, the club was just 2-7 in their first three Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) series. Fortunately for head coach Neil McPhee and company, the Huskies brought on their brooms and were able to sweep Dukes at Friedman Diamond in Brookline last weekend.
“This was a huge weekend for us coming off the tough losses from the weekend before,” McPhee said. “Let’s face it, we dug ourselves a hole over the first few weeks. We’re digging out right now. We are crawling back to the middle of the pack and that’s really good to see. Hofstra will be tough next weekend, but we just need to continue to put all three parts of the game together like we did this past weekend.”
In the weekend’s opening contest, freshman sensation Nick Cubarney tossed a solid five innings while giving up six hits and three earned runs. Cubarney wasn’t projected to even be in the Huskies’ rotation before he threw three scoreless innings against the Boston Red Sox back in late February. But the rookie from Trafford, Pa. has been an integral part of the Huskies’ (16-12, 5-7) success thus far this season. Cubarney has gone 3-1 in his four starts this season and leads the team with a 1.66 earned run average.
Fast forwarding to the series finale, senior pitcher Kevin Ferguson was dominant on the mound for the Huskies as well. Ferguson, a 6-foot Suffern, N.Y. product, struck out 11 Dukes batters while only giving up four hits in his complete game shutout.
“It felt good to finally get a good start under my belt,” Ferguson said. “My fastball game was working, I was able to throw my curveball efficiently and my change-up was working too. I was able to establish the inner part of the plate early on and the outer part of the plate later on.”
The staff ace’s incredible performance earned him Co-CAA Pitcher of the Week honors, along with the University of North Carolina-Wilmington’s Mat Batts. Ferguson now leads the club in strikeouts with 41.
While the Huskies were successful on the mound, with Nick Berger also earning a victory on Saturday, McPhee saw several players have tremendous weekends from the plate, too.
“It’s huge to have the bats back you up,” Ferguson said. “We’re a good hitting team so you can only keep our bats at bay for so long. When we start putting up runs it makes you feel good on the mound and we’re a tough team to beat.”
Junior outfielder Brad Burcroff continued the hot start to his first season in Husky red and black on Friday when he homered and tripled en route to three runs and five runs batted in. The transfer from Riverside Community College in California batted 5-for-9 with six RBIs throughout the entire weekend while also scoring four runs.
Sophomore shortstop Jason Vosler keyed the Huskies’ offensive attack on Saturday in a lopsided 8-3 victory. Vosler batted 5-for-12 during the series at the Diamond while driving in three runs and also crossing the plate five times himself. The 2012 CAA Rookie of the Year’s triple in the first inning set the tone early for Northeastern.
“It was a nice warm weekend,” McPhee said. “There’s no question that the weather has a huge impact at the plate. The middle of the order really led the way. Jason [Vosler], Brad [Burcroff], Connor Lyons and we got a lot of guys on base early. All of those things are keys to our success.”
The undefeated weekend was enormous for the Huskies in terms of staying relevant in the conference standings. With the three victories, Northeastern is now tied for sixth place in the conference standings with Georgia State University.
“Next weekend will be huge, [Hofstra] is the team we need to keep ourselves ahead of in the conference standings,” McPhee said.
Hofstra University is currently in 10th and last place in the conference standings, but Georgia State, Old Dominion University and George Mason University, the teams that separate the Huskies and Pride, are all ineligible for the CAA Tournament per CAA realignment bylaws, which give each team a better shot at the tournament.
