By Jenna Majeski, news staff
The results of last weekend’s series were nowhere close to predictable, as the Northeastern Huskies and University of Missouri Tigers wobbled back and forth for the lead only to end the four-game series in Fort Myers, Florida, with a tie.
The Huskies had a tough start with a 2-5 loss to the Tigers Friday, not getting their first run until the seventh inning via second-year Scott Holzwasser’s home run, his second of the season.
“I’m just trying to swing the bat well,” Holzwasser said. “Coach expects a lot out of me batting in the three hole so I basically just need to get as many runs in as possible and I got it done on Friday night.”
The Huskies’ second and final run of the game was earned in the ninth inning after second-year Kyle Peterson batted a double and senior captain Max Burt batted a runner in.
“I thought on Friday night we had a chance,” head coach Mike Glavine said. “I mean, we faced one of the best pitchers in the country and we were really only one or two hits away from making that game a little different, but we competed hard against that kid.”
Northeastern made a comeback in the first game of Saturday’s doubleheader, beating Missouri with a final score of 10-8.
The team started strong with three runners batted in during the first inning, one by Burt and the other two by third-year Ryan Solomon. The next four innings were fruitless for the Huskies and by the end of the seventh inning they were down by three.
In the next two innings the Huskies added an additional six runs, three of which were the result of hits by third-year captain Charlie McConnell. Also noteworthy was the performance of third-year captain and pitcher Tyler Brown, who totaled seven strikeouts in six innings.
“The expectations were just to see where we are as a team — going in there and making sure we play our best baseball and see what happens,” Brown said. “We knew that if we went in there and took care of business we could definitely compete with that kind of team.”
The day took a disappointing turn when Northeastern faced the University of Missouri again Saturday evening and lost with a final score of 20-1 with the sole run by the Huskies in the third inning.
“I think we had a bad day and I think we came off an emotional win after the first game of the doubleheader and it took us a lot of energy to come back and win that game,” Glavine said. “To me the score doesn’t matter, whether its 20-1 or 2-1 it still counts as one loss and so we didn’t let that bother us at all and we just came out the next day ready to go.”
The team rebounded Sunday in the last game of the series with a 4-2 win. Second-year Sean Mellen pitched seven innings and struck out four, following up his 11-strikeout outing against Creighton University.
Glavine views the weekend as a success, noting the hard work of the team after playing a four-game series as well as an exhibition game against the Boston Red Sox in the span of four days.
“I think the biggest thing is we just really showed a lot of fight and competitiveness and toughness throughout the entire weekend,” Glavine said.
The Huskies will advance to the Snowbird Baseball Classic this weekend in Port Charlotte, Florida, where they will face Presbyterian College, Dartmouth College, Villanova University and Georgetown University in the annual competition.
“These teams don’t have the typical noise of the other teams we’ve played in the last two weekends,” Brown said. “So we’ve just got to make sure we take the field the same way we did the last couple weekends and take care of business and hopefully we come out with a couple Ws.”
