By Matty Wasserman and Daisy Roberts
BROOKLINE — Coming off their most disappointing series of the season against UNCW last weekend, Northeastern coach Mike Glavine spent the week stressing to his team “a sense of urgency.”
With a thorough effort across the lineup, the Huskies responded.
Behind 5.1 solid innings from senior Wyatt Scotti and a seven-run fourth inning on just two hits, Northeastern steamed past Elon 13-2 to complete the weekend sweep, after winning 11-5 on Friday and 7-2 on Saturday.
Scotti’s victory was the 24th of his career, tying him for the most in program history, while grad senior Alex Lane delivered his 64th and 65th RBIs of the year on two sacrifice flies, giving him the single-season program record.
“It was a great, great weekend,” Glavine said. “You get the sweep, number one, that’s something we wanted to do, taking care of business at home. And then you mix in some personal accolades…just a lot of great things.”
After failing to get past four innings in either of his past two starts — including his nightmarish 9-run outing against Delaware two weekends ago — Scotti needed to give the Huskies some more length on Sunday. He battled through traffic each of the first two innings, ceding three base runners and one run in both frames, but induced key ground ball double plays both times to limit the damage.
After entering the day with 19 double plays this season, tied for 246th nationally, the Huskies turned five on Sunday alone.
“We have not been turning double plays, we’ve got to be near the bottom [nationally],” Glavine said. “For us to have that many today, turning them under pressure, pitchers making pitches to get the ground balls and then our guys being in position and having the confidence to make them, is huge.”
Those were the only two runs Scotti allowed through his 5.1 innings of work, before handing off to a combination of Brett Dunham, James Quinlivan, Joseph Hauser, and Jack Beauchesne. Those four combined for 3.2 scoreless innings in relief, continuing a strong stretch for a bullpen which allowed just two earned runs in its last 15.2 innings.
The Huskies’ bats gained some momentum in the second inning, plating three runs on four hits from the 6-9 hitters of the lineup, highlighted by a solo shot off the bat of sophomore Carmelo Mussachia into the left field seats.
Then, the Huskies really came to life in the fourth at the plate — though not necessarily through making contact. Seven runs scored with just two hits in the inning, with Elon starter Ryan Sprock and left-handed reliever Sam Nomura combining to issue three walks and three hit batters between the two of them. Every at-bat Northeastern put together was a battle, and they made the Elon pitching staff fight for every out.
In all, Northeastern drew eight walks and five hit batsmen in the game — including two more HBPs for Luke Beckstein, moving his national lead in the category to 28 for the season.
“Hit-by-pitches are a huge positive,” Glavine said. “You don’t want anybody to get hurt, but we also don’t want anybody to pitch inside on us so that we have to jump out of the way. That’s in the pitchers’ heads, and they know that coming in, where they know they’re going to have to pitch inside to be successful against us, but they also know there’s not a lot of room for error in there.”
In the seventh inning, grad senior Tyler MacGregor came up to the plate with the bases loaded, looking to build on his monster weekend after hitting three home runs across the first two games of the series. He sent a long fly to deep left center, but Elon’s Kenny Mallory Jr. made an incredible play to leap over the wall and rob MacGregor of a grand slam — leaving him with only a sac fly to show for it.
Still, MacGregor contributed elsewhere with a terrific day in the field, making a superb 3-unassisted double play in the fourth inning and scooping a number of tough hops at first base.
“We talk about being complete players, not just hitters, not just defenders, you’re asked to do everything when you’re out there,” Glavine said. “[MacGregor] got robbed of a home run, but he was a huge difference defensively. He picked some balls today that you don’t notice, that just go into the scorebook as an out… That’s what he does every day, he’s just a great baseball player.”
While Elon sits near the basement of the CAA standings and is a team Northeastern expects to handle, the climb back from a rough patch over the past two weeks needed to start somewhere. And with three dominant victories, the Huskies head into the final 13 games of the regular season with their gritty identity intact.
“The offense just grinded, made it messy, and made it really hard for Elon to throw strikes. We stole bases again and got some big hits, a home run, kind of saw the whole package today.”
Northeastern will be back in action next Friday, when they travel to Greensboro to open a three-game series against NC A&T. WRBB Sports will have written coverage of the matchup.