Story by Khalin Kapoor
Photos by Sadie Parker
BROOKLINE, MA — The Northeastern Huskies (10–6) fell to the Boston College Eagles (14–13) 5–3 on Tuesday afternoon in a slow-paced and mostly uneventful game.
The Eagles scored two runs in the second inning and didn’t look back, never relinquishing their lead and leaning on their talented pitching staff to close out the win. Starter Joe Mancini spun six solid innings, allowing just two runs and striking out four.
“Give Mancini and their relievers credit,” Northeastern head coach Mike Glavine said. “We couldn’t get anything on the barrel for a bunch of innings.”
In Northeastern’s defense, they were coming off a ten-day hiatus after their series against the University of Rhode Island was canceled. Their bats were rusty early in the game and they needed time to adjust.
But BC took advantage. Shades of the Huskies’ regular production were evident later in the game, but they couldn’t get that one big hit with runners in scoring position to really make themselves competitive.
“You gotta play really well against a team like that,” said Glavine. “We just kinda played okay and they took advantage.”
The ten-day break also presented pitching complications for the Huskies, who opted to run a bullpen game in lieu of a traditional starter. Starter Kyle Long pitched the first, reliever Wyatt Scotti pitched the second and third, Eric Yost spun the next three scoreless, and Brian Rodriguez finished the last three, allowing two runs. Scotti was saddled with the loss after allowing the first runs of the game to BC in the second. This move was done in order to try and stretch out as many pitchers as possible after not playing over the past week and a half.
“[I wanted to] just get some guys out there and get the adrenaline going again,” Glavine remarked. “[We’ll] pitch a bunch of guys tomorrow.”
In the sixth inning, down 3–0, Northeastern provided some excitement in the form of back-to-back jacks from second baseman Scott Holzwasser and left fielder Jared Dupere.
It looked as if the Huskies were nearing a comeback, but they fell just short, consistently stranding their runners in scoring position and allowing BC to tack on two insurance runs.
“I thought we had a little momentum there after those two solo home runs,” remarked Glavine. “But … they ended up taking the momentum right back.”
The Huskies will look for some consistency in their schedule going forward. We’ve seen how successful they can be when they get going; they came into this game having won their last six. But this was the third time this season the Huskies have had 10 days between games, and it showed.
The Huskies play next on Wednesday at UMass Amherst at 3 PM.