By Nate Owen, News Staff

Last year, James Madison put an end to any thoughts of the baseball team making the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) tournament by taking two out of three games at Friedman Diamond to close the season.
This weekend, the Dukes once again took two out of three from visiting NU, but the Huskies used an eighth inning double by senior catcher Frank Pesanello to escape the weekend on a winning note, gathering their first conference win of the young season against the defending CAA champs.
‘It’s definitely huge for us,’ Pesanello said of salvaging the final game of the weekend. ‘The past couple years we’ve been coming down to the last weekend just one or two games short of the conference tournament.’
The Huskies took a 1-0 lead when senior second baseman James Donaldson blasted a 2-1 pitch from Evan Scott over the right center wall to lead off the third. The solo shot was his first home run of the year.
JMU (14-9, 2-1 CAA) tied the game in the sixth when right fielder Matt Browning (2-for-3) doubled home the tying run off senior Trevor Smith, who came in relief of sophomore Les Williams (5 1/3 innings, four hits, one run). But Smith (1-1, 3.71) blanked the Dukes for the remaining 3 2/3 innings for his first win of the year.
Senior third baseman Mike Tamsin grounded a two-out single up the middle in the eighth inning. Pesanello then boomed Trevor Knight’s (1-1, 4.66) offering into left center to give NU the lead.
‘ The hit snapped a mini skid for the co-captain, who had been just 4-for-23 (.174) during the past six games.
‘ ‘I’ve been seeing less and less pitches to hit,’ Pesanello said.’ ‘I hadn’t been doing much all weekend, but today they came right after me and I was able to line it into the gap.’
Friday’s game featured a marquee pitching matchup between junior Ryan Quigley and Turner Phelps, who entered the game with the most strikeouts in the conference. James Madison tacked on an early run in the first thanks to a sacrifice fly by shortstop David Herbek. The Dukes added runs in the fourth, fifth, and seventh innings to increase their lead to 5-0.
The Huskies were finally able to get to Phelps (4-0 3.18) in the eighth. Sophomore designated hitter Devin Barry started the inning with a double to left center. A single by’ Donaldson advanced him to third and redshirt freshman right fielder Matt Miller (2-for-4) singled up the middle to score Barry for the first NU run.
Junior center fielder David Gustafson doubled home Donaldson for the second Husky run. A walk to Tamsin, loaded the bases and ended the day for Phelps, who allowed six hits in 7 1/3 innings. Reliever Kevin Munson bailed out Phelps by striking out Pesanello and sophomore outfielder Jeff Dunlap to end the inning.
JMU tagged reliever Charly Bashara for two insurance runs in the bottom half of the inning, the first time the junior had allowed any runs this season.
Munson retired the Huskies in order in the top of the ninth to lock up the 7-2 win. With the win, Phelps improved to 12-0 in his JMU career.
‘He knows how to pitch, he doesn’t overpower, he just hits his spots,’ head coach Neil McPhee said of Phelps.
Quigley (1-2 4.56), took the loss, going seven innings, allowing five runs on eight hits while striking out nine.
On Saturday, senior co-captain Jeff Thomson and the Huskies held a slim 1-0 lead through five thanks to a fourth inning double by junior first baseman Brendan Stokes (2-for-3), which sent Gustafson home.
That lead would evaporate in the sixth inning, as James Madison pounded out all 11 of its runs to to take an 11-1 lead, scoring six runs off Thomson (1-3 7.20) while adding five more off senior Dan Zehr. Four of the runs Zehr allowed in his third of an inning were unearned due to a Tamsin error.
‘He pitched very well,’ McPhee said of Thomson. ‘It’s strange to lose one inning of the game in such a way. They legitimately hit three or four eyeballs through the infield, a couple of infield hits and bloops mixed in and that gives you 11 runs for the inning.’
Alex Valadja (2-1, 5.40) went five innings, striking out nine and allowing just four hits. Munson once again stymied the Huskies, tossing three scoreless innings with five strikeouts to close the game.
‘Again we held pretty true to form,’ McPhee said of the weekend. ‘We pitched pretty well; we had trouble scoring runs.’
However, potentially good news on the injury front could bring help to the lineup soon.
Junior outfielders Frank Compagnone and Tony DiCesare could be closing in on a return to the field. McPhee said Compagnone is close to his target return date of April 1 and might be able to DH or pinch hit this weekend at Hofstra.
DiCesare is a little more questionable. McPhee said he could return the week after next, although it hasn’t been determined yet.
McPhee said that even with both of them back, there’s going to be a question of how baseball ready the pair is.
Northeastern (10-7, 1-2 CAA)’ will host Connecticut (7-10, 0-3 Big East) today at 3 p.m. at Friedman Diamond and Rhode Island (12-6, 2-1 Atlantic-10) tomorrow at 3 p.m.’ Sophomore JT Ross (2-0, 0.69) takes the hill today, while Bashara (3-0, 1.10) will face the Rams Tuesday.