By Jenna Majeski, news staff
Northeastern added three more conference wins this past weekend against Elon University, sweeping the three-game series to advance to the No. 1 rank in the CAA.
The weekend started with a doubleheader Saturday, with the Huskies winning both games to secure the series.
Northeastern won the first game 7-1, taking the lead in the first inning after third-year Jake Farrell batted in a runner. The team maintained the lead throughout the entirety of the game.
A single by first-year Ian Fair in the fourth inning brought two more runners in, but it wasn’t until the seventh inning that the Huskies substantially increased their lead with four total runners batted in by third-year Cam Walsh, Farrell and fourth-year Max Burt.
“The first game, their starter’s pretty good,” Fair said, referring to Elon’s starting pitcher. “He’s got great numbers so far, so taking that kid out and hitting well against him is a pretty big deal.”
Fair said Northeastern did the same thing with Elon’s second pitcher.
“Any time you can go out there and put up runs against good pitchers, it puts a good feeling in you,” he said.
Game two posed more of a challenge, with Elon and Northeastern pushing back and forth for the win to end the game 6-5 in favor of Northeastern.
By the end of the third inning Northeastern had a 3-0 lead, but Elon rose to the challenge and was up 5-4 by the end of the sixth inning.
A timely home run by third-year Charlie McConnell in the seventh inning tied the game up and gave Northeastern hope for another win.
“The turning point would be late in game two yesterday,” head coach Mike Glavine said. “We were down a run and McConnell hit a home run. And he’s not a power guy, he’s a speed guy and a on-base guy, and he hit that home-run and it just energized our team late to tie it up.”
Fourth-year John Mazza secured the win in the eighth inning, batting in Burt on a single for the last scoring run of the game.
With the series already won and hoping for a sweep, Northeastern went into the final game on Sunday with high hopes.
“Anytime we win the first two games, obviously we want to get the sweep,” Fair said. “We were feeling pretty good having already won the series on the first day, so I think we just came out here today and got the job done.”
Winning the final game proved no challenge for the Huskies as they took the game 9-3. Second-year Sean Mellen pitched the majority of the game as the regular Sunday pitcher, striking out six players.
“The team played great around me today, as they have all year,” Mellen said. “They put up a bunch of runs [and] played great defense. That makes it really easy to pitch Sundays.”
Northeastern started the game strong with Burt batting in McConnell in the first inning. The Huskies continued this momentum throughout the game, ending the seventh inning 9-0.
The Huskies allowed Elon three runs in the eighth inning, but they were not sufficient to close the lead Northeastern had taken.
“They’re a talented club,” Glavine said. “They can really pitch it and they’ve got some guys that can swing it, and I think we just caught them at the right time this weekend where they didn’t play their best and we did enough to win.”
This weekend the Huskies will be in South Carolina for a three-game series at the College of Charleston.
