Since forming and joining the New England Club Baseball Association (NECBA) for the 2006 season, Northeastern’s club baseball team has become something of a powerhouse. This year, the squad further cemented that status as it captured its second straight championship title in its third straight championship game appearance.
The club baseball team, beat Connecticut, 12-7, in the championship game Sunday after besting Boston University, 12-1, in the semifinals Saturday. Last year, the Huskies beat Holy Cross, 18-1, to earn its first championship.
“We have an excellent field of players to choose from,” said junior and manager Brian Rizzo of his team’s consistent success. “Northeastern’s a big school and there are a lot of good ball players that don’t have the time to commit to varsity, or aren’t just quite Division 1 ballplayers.”
Rizzo added that he felt the strong makeup and closeness of the team helped foster a consistently winning program.
“The chemistry of this team is better than any other team I’ve been a part of in my life,” he said. “If you were to talk to some of the guys, especially the seniors, they would tell you that the past three years they’ve had with the team have been the best part of their college career.”
The team played a nearly undefeated regular season, going 11-1 against the rest of the NECBA. The lone loss came Sept. 24 when they fell at home to BU, 6-2. In the championship game against UConn, the Huskies played a game that Rizzo called “really exciting and stressful.”
UConn began by scoring a run in the first inning, which NU found an answer for in the third when senior Bill Palmer led off with a double. Senior Artie Patel singled Palmer in before scoring himself on a single by senior Jon Scarfo, who eventually also scored to put Northeastern at a 3-1 advantage.
UConn came back again, though, scoring two in the fourth inning and another in the fifth to stake a 4-3 lead. Scarfo homered in the bottom half of the fifth to tie it at four. In the sixth, UConn once again went ahead by scoring a run to take a 5-4 lead.
In the sixth inning, however, NU pulled ahead for good when Patel scored on a double by Monohon to tie it at five before junior Henry Spitzer singled in Monohon for the go-ahead run.
In the bottom of the seventh, the game was blown open with junior Matt Jamula’s bases-loaded double fueling a five-run inning. With a home run by junior Nate Hodor, NU capped off a 12-7 championship victory. Junior Nick Young pitched four and one-third innings while allowing just one run to earn the win in the game.
The championship was the culmination of what the team had strived to accomplish all season, Rizzo said.
“We had a goal. That goal was to win,” he said. “That’s been our goal the entire season. As a team we want to win first, and have fun second. Usually those two things go hand in hand, and fortunately for us they do. We just kept the goal in mind the entire season: to win baseball games.”
The team went 11-1 during the regular season, finishing first in the NECBA’s North Division. It was the third straight year the team finished first. In 2006 it went 9-1 and last year it went 8-4 for a 28-6 record in its three years of existence. Scarfo led the team in most categories this season, with 23 runs, 22 hits, 10 stolen bases and five home runs. Monohon was second on the team with 22 runs and added two home runs and 16 hits. Patel had 18 runs to go with 17 hits, and Hodor had 14 runs, 14 hits and four home runs for the team.
Defensively, the team was led by Palmer, who played the entire season at third base without committing an error, and the pitching of Matt Conroy, who went 6-0 with a 0.97 ERA and 40 strikeouts in 36 innings during the season.
Rizzo said the season was a gratifying experience due to the team’s close camaraderie.
“Team chemistry is something you cannot coach,” he said. “It’s something that happens, and we’ve been incredibly fortunate that we haven’t had any problems with team chemistry. It’s just been a really, really great group of guys over the years.”
