By Jake Fischer, News Correspondent
The Northeastern baseball team headed down to Virginia last weekend for a classic tilt against the University of Richmond Spiders. While Richmond is no longer a member of the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA), the Spiders are a team the Huskies have frequently battled on off-weekends for the last few years.
“When you’re not scheduled for a conference game, you simply have to match up your schedule with a team that also is not playing in conference on the same weekend,” head coach Neil McPhee said. “Over the last couple of years, Richmond, luckily for us, has had open weekends to matchup for us and to head down there.”
Northeastern has been able to take advantage of the matchup in recent years, as McPhee remembers his club taking two out of three games in the majority of their series versus the Spiders. But, unfortunately for the Huskies, that was not the case this time around.
“We’ve beaten them most years two out of three,” McPhee said. “This year we should have beaten them two out of three, but we lost the last game in the ninth inning. And, you have to give [Richmond] credit because they did hit the ball pretty well in the ninth inning. We didn’t give anything away, they just made a good comeback.“
In that Sunday contest, the Huskies held a 4-0 lead entering the bottom of the ninth before the Spiders put up five runs to steal one on their home field.
“Kevin Ferguson pitched another gem of a ball game,” McPhee said. “But, unfortunately he didn’t get a loss and he didn’t get a win.”
Ferguson threw eight strong innings of scoreless baseball, fanning six while allowing just five hits. McPhee yanked the starter after he yielded singles to the first two Richmond batters in the ninth, though they would score with Dylan Maki on the mound.
But, despite shaky pitching, the Huskies’ bats were alive and well all weekend long at Pitt Field. Particularly, junior right fielder Aaron Barbosa keyed the offensive attack. Throughout the course of the entire weekend, the Dracut native hit 5-for-12, driving in seven RBIs and scoring three runs.
“I was just kind of feeling good. It was really nice weather down there. Every day it was 75 [degrees] and sunny. So, that helps a little bit and helps your body feel a little bit better. As a team, we had a pretty good offensive weekend.”
Barbosa hit very well on Saturday afternoon, specifically, as it 3-for-5 and drove in five RBIs in that game alone.
“I definitely felt really good on Saturday. I was just feeling really comfortable at the plate. I got a couple hits off of lefties and one off of a righty too,” Barbosa said. “I felt good as soon as I got to the field.”
Now fourth on the team in batting average, Barbosa, who has played and started in all of the team’s 37 games, said he thinks much of the team’s hitting success can be accredited to the field they played on.
“It was a great place to hit, kind of a fast field,” he explained. “The infield was just kind of quick, the grass was cut short, the dirt was pretty hard. That helps as far as hitting, you know if you put the barrel on the ball there’s a better chance of it getting through for a hit.”
However, as the team now enters an off week before their final stretch of the season, McPhee and company can’t help but reflect on how the weekend was ultimately a letdown.
“It was a disappointing weekend because we should have — could have — won two out of three and maybe even three out of three,” McPhee said. “But, at the same time, we hit the ball well most of the weekend, we played pretty well over the weekend and we just lost that last game which cost us the series.”
The Huskies have eight days off, following their 10-6 win Wednesday against Fairfield University before they begin their slate of crucial conference weekend series.
“A goal we set at the beginning of the year was to make the CAA Tournament and that’s still our number one focus,” Barbosa said. “Another team goal was to get to 30 wins as well, which is coming along. Personally, I just want to keep improving and I think everyone is looking to play their best baseball down the stretch.”
The Huskies will take on Georgia State University at Friedman Diamond the weekend after finals end and will finish the season with subsequent conference series matchups against University of North Carolina-Wilmington, the University of Delaware and Towson University prior to the CAA Tournament in Harrisonburg, Va.
“The toughest part of our schedule is coming up and our athletes know that they’re going to have to dig down and to keep us where we are,” McPhee said. “We’re ahead of James Madison and Hofstra – those are the two teams we must stay ahead of at this point. And we could jump in the conference as well, but we’re going to have a tough schedule ahead, there’s no question about it. I think all of those teams we play are ahead of us in the standings, so that’s means we have to play at the top of our game.”
