By Bailey Knecht, News Correspondent
Just three days after the Northeastern baseball team completed a dominant three-game sweep of Niagara, the Huskies were shut out by Bryant University, 3-0. The Huskies, who outscored Niagara University 7-0 on Sunday, struggled to get past second base in Wednesday’s game at Friedman Diamond.
“We were very passive today,” Northeastern coach Neil McPhee said.
After Wednesday’s game, the all-time series between the two teams shifted to 3-2 in Bryant’s favor. The Bulldogs’ record improved to 7-7, while the Huskies fell to 7-9 on the season.
James Mulry, the sophomore southpaw, started as the Northeastern pitcher. He had a strong performance against the Boston Red Sox in last month’s annual exhibition game, striking out both Dustin Pedroia and David Ortiz.
Mulry pitched well early on, throwing seven pitches to work a 1-2-3 second inning. He threw another three up, three down in the fourth inning. The scoreboard remained blank until an RBI single for Bryant’s Jordan Mountford in the third inning, putting the Bulldogs ahead at 1-0.
Junior Michael Foster and redshirt-sophomore Jason Vosler opened the bottom of the fourth inning with consecutive singles, but no runs were scored.
The Bulldogs pulled further ahead in the fifth inning with a couple of big plays. Senior Tom Gavitt hit his first home run of the season to make the score 2-0. Junior John Mullen hit his second home run of the season, and Bryant ended the inning leading Northeastern 3-0.
Bryant threatened to extend the lead in the sixth inning with the bases loaded, but Mulry prevented another run with his fifth strikeout of the game.
Northeastern reliever Aaron Civale took over in the seventh inning. The right-handed freshman threw three shutout innings.
“Pitching has been our best part of our game, by far, and he’s ready to really help as we get into conference play,” McPhee said of Civale’s impressive play, calling his recent successes “very good signs.”
Bryant’s Vaughn Hayward pitched seven innings and only allowed four hits. Senior Sean Lyons notched a base hit in the ninth inning, but the Huskies were unable to get on the scoreboard. “We weren’t aggressive enough to score runs,” McPhee said.
Freshman pitcher Dustin Hunt was named the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) Rookie of the Week after his first collegiate win on Sunday against Niagara. Hunt has recorded 22 strikeouts in 20 innings this season. He is the second Husky to earn a CAA weekly award this year, along with Chris Carmain, who received the Pitcher of the Week award.
Coach McPhee spoke about the potential of Hunt and the other young pitchers.
“The young pitchers are really coming into their own, especially Dustin, and then Civale today looked good,” he said. “We have a couple more freshman who have looked good enough to get in some games, get in some innings.”
The team has a long stretch of games in the next few weeks.
“Play better,” McPhee said of what the Huskies need to do in the upcoming games. “That’s all we can do.”
