By Jill Saftel, News Staff
The Northeastern baseball team found itself in a do-or-die situation last weekend in its final Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) series of the regular season.
The team needed a single win out of its three-game series with Towson University or a loss from another team to guarantee a spot in the CAA Championship tournament. With no help from the outside, the Huskies pulled out a 6-3 victory in the series’ Saturday finale after falling both Thursday and Friday to cement their place in the postseason as the No. 5 seed.
“Obviously, we were in a situation where we needed a win or a loss from someone else,” sophomore pitcher Nick Berger said. “We didn’t get a loss from someone else, but we knew we had to take care of business on our own and got that win after two losses. It was just a big group effort in that.”
With the fate of their season on the line, Northeastern was forced to use its full bullpen during the series against Towson, leaving all pitchers with a short rest period before the start of the CAA tournament Wednesday.
“They’ll be dealing with a bit of short rest but I think they’ll be fine,” head coach Neil McPhee said Tuesday as the team practiced in Harrisonburg, Va. “It’s all part of tournament baseball, everyone has to be available.”
That includes Berger, who was selected as starting pitcher for Wednesday’s game. But the sophomore said he wasn’t worried about the short turnover period after having pitched Friday at Towson.
“Any time you get a start in the playoffs, there’s an adrenaline rush that gets you through, keeps you going forward,” Berger said. “We want to see what we can do here and make a regional or more.”
McPhee said it was a “pressure-filled weekend” at Towson but performances from key players like Kevin Ferguson were a huge plus. Ferguson, a senior pitcher, threw for all nine innings and tied a career-high 11 strikeouts in the win.
As luck would have it, it wouldn’t be long before Towson and Northeastern would take to the diamond together again. Paired together for the first round of the tournament, McPhee said the Huskies’ knowledge of the No. 4 seed Towson’s lineup and pitching staff was a benefit of the matchup.
But that knowledge works both ways, and Berger said their recent series makes it even for both sides.
“Towson knows a little about us and we know a little about them,” Berger said. “It’s all about who comes out and wants it more.”
When it comes to wanting it, the Huskies had a huge motivating factor in the preseason poll. Northeastern was selected to finish last, and has exceeded expectations with their tournament berth.
“From the beginning, the poll was motivation,” Berger said. “We never agreed that we were the worst team in the league, so we have something to prove.”
Unfortunately for the Huskies, Towson came out with something to prove as well, and took down Northeastern by a single run in the tournament opener at noon yesterday. The 9-8 final was highlighted by two runs scored in the top of the ninth, but the Huskies couldn’t complete a comeback for the win.
The loss forced the Huskies into a double header, as the tournament is double-elimination style. The schedule took a hectic turn when the University of Delaware and James Madison University game, which would determine the Huskies’ opponent, was delayed at 4:36 p.m. Wednesday due to inclement weather. The game was set to restart at 7:30 p.m., a half hour after the Huskies were set to play its loser, but was still delayed as of 8 p.m.
The CAA rescheduled the Huskies’ game to 10 a.m. today, but even if Northeastern is knocked out of the tournament, McPhee said the program has shown progress this season.
“When you look at the season as a whole, it’s a definite step forward for the program when we were picked last and are now in the tournament,” he said.
