The Huskies have set absolute fire to the CAA this season. They’re 22-2 in conference and have won every CAA series thus far. In fact, they haven’t lost a game since April 6th.
Coming into a weekend at William & Mary, it was set to be one of the more difficult contests on the Huskies’ schedule. The second-in-conference Tribe was the very team to knock Northeastern out of the CAA tournament last season, but the Huskies responded with a vengeance this weekend — one shutout, one 14-run demolition, and one mercy rule victory — to sweep the series and pick up the conference title and their 20th straight win.
Game 1: The shutout
The 1-0 win may have been the closest shutout the Huskies have completed this season en route to their nation-leading 15, but Northeastern still got it done thanks to star pitching duo Will Jones and Charlie Walker. Individually, the pair are the strongest starter and reliever on Northeastern’s roster. Jones’s 2.17 ERA sits at 10th in the nation and first in the CAA among pitchers appearing in at least one inning per game, while Walker’s 0.90 is practically unfathomable. But it’s exactly what the Huskies needed to silence the most powerful offense in the conference.
Jones sat down the first 12 batters in order, not letting a runner on base until William & Mary’s Lucas Carmichael drew a hit by pitch from the leadoff position at the top of the fifth. Christian Rush advanced Carmichael with a sacrifice bunt, but Jones was able to finish off the inning without a mar to Northeastern’s record and bring back the shine with a 1-2-3 top of the sixth.
However, back through the order, Carmichael — who’s fifth in the CAA with a .366 batting average — proved trouble for Jones once more in the seventh, dropping a single into right field and ending Jones’s outing.
Head coach Mike Glavine brought in Walker to finish out the game and he slotted in fluidly, striking out the final batter of the frame before putting up a flawless eighth inning.
On both sides, those eight innings were quiet. Northeastern had racked up a handful of hits — from Gerety, Fosberg, Mussachia, and Feinberg — and drawn walks and hits by pitch, but every Husky had been left on base.
However, in one last frantic push from the two teams at the top of the CAA, the bottom of the ninth got busy.
Jack Goodman, finally back in the lineup after missing the last four games due to injury, wasted no time getting back in the swing of things. Goodman led off the ninth inning with a single up the middle, then advanced all the way to third on a wild pitch. But Alex Lane was the difference-maker. The graduate student first baseman came up to the plate with two outs after going 0-for-3, but changed the tide when he found the left-side gap to bring home Goodman with an RBI single.
With the stalemate finally broken, the Tribe worked hard to conjure a response. They loaded up the bases with a pair of singles and an intentional walk for Carmichael, but the Huskies locked things down and ended the game with a clean record.
The Friday afternoon victory earned the Huskies the regular season CAA title with still five games left in the regular season.
Game 2: The 14-run demolition
While Friday’s matchup had been pretty quiet for the Huskies’ lineup, Saturday’s was anything but. Northeastern’s bats exploded for 15 runs on 16 hits while holding the Tribe to a single tally. But it was slow to start.
Funnily enough, it was William & Mary that got on the board first with a sacrifice fly at the bottom of the first. Northeastern didn’t get rolling until the fourth when they jumped ahead to a 4-1 lead thanks to RBI hits from Goodman, Matt Brinker, and Chris Walsh.
Back around the horn, Brinker and Walsh brought in the next two runs for the Huskies on a bases loaded hit-by-pitch and a sacrifice fly, respectively.
Brinker and Walsh are both players who have been in and out of the lineup all season, filling in when needed but not making a ton of noise. However, they stepped up against the big guns — the second-in-the-CAA Tribe. Walsh (who didn’t earn his first hit until his 21st at bat of the season) went 3-for-4 on the afternoon, showing how far his sophomore season has taken him.
Sprinkle in some Goodman and Gerety magic along the way, and the Huskies were already racing towards victory lane by the time the ninth inning rolled around. Unfortunately for the Tribe, however, Northeastern was far from done and nearly doubled their 8-1 lead with another trip through the order and change.
It was honestly a tragedy for the Tribe, as they had held on to some semblance of strength through nearly two full games against the Huskies, but here they unraveled and would be left in pieces for the remainder of the weekend.
It’s uncommon enough to have three players hit by pitches in the span of a game, let alone in one inning. But Northeastern was getting on base with every move in the book in the final frame and it was hard for William & Mary to shake them off the diamond.
The Huskies picked up the inning halfway through the order, and after Musacchia singled and Brinker was plunked, the pair successfully completed a double steal to put them both in scoring position. Once again, Alex Lane came in clutch in the ninth, driving them both home to get on base himself.
Then, the Huskies loaded up: Bozzo on a hit by pitch, Walsh with a single. And all of a sudden, the bases were stacked. The rest of the runs came with the bases fully loaded. Any mistake made by William & Mary pitchers Noah Hertzler or Chad Yates was met with damage.
Northeastern brought in five runs with the bases loaded, one at a time, on walks, singles, and the third hit by pitch of the inning.
When the dust had settled, the Huskies had taken the series with a 15-1 victory.
Game 3: The mercy-rule victory
By the time Sunday rolled around, the Huskies already seemed to have everything: the CAA title, the series win, the program record for conference wins (21).
But if you already have the longest win streak in the NCAA and one of the best pitching staffs in the country to boot, why stop there?
Unfortunately, Sunday’s 15-5 win will drive up the Huskies’ first-in-the-nation ERA (3.04), but those seem like just the little things when there’s so much juice in the bats that trouble on the basepaths can’t negate a mercy-rule success.
It didn’t take long for the Huskies to show they wanted to take this one early, and their two-out game was impeccable.
After the first inning, they were already up 5-0 thanks to a Musacchia single and a Lane grand slam. That’s the third game in a row Lane has brought in crucial runs, and while this season may not have been the best of his career, the havoc he wreaked against William & Mary proved that he can still be a flashing star on Northeastern’s lineup.
Accumulating a five-run deficit, William & Mary’s starting pitcher Jack Weight only lasted one inning, but reliever Reed Interdonato didn’t fare much better. In the first of his 3.2 innings of work, Interdonato walked three, allowed two hits, and let a runner through on a wild pitch, chalking up four more runs for the Huskies.
Once Northeastern tallied their tenth straight run, however, a solo bomb off the bat of Maldonado, William & Mary looked desperately to avoid the mercy. At the bottom of the fourth, Jerry Barnes drove in a 2-RBI home run, but one frame later, the Huskies bit right back.
Back-to-back four-pitch walks brought Walsh up to the plate with a runner in scoring position. And Walsh, continuing his bright and shining momentum, dropped down what was supposed to be a sacrifice bunt, scoring two and allowing him to reach base on a throwing error.
A five-pitch walk and a wild pitch spelled the end of the day for Interdonato, bringing Ryan Feczko to the mound for the Tribe.
Despite the new pitcher, Maldonado immediately blasted a double into the outfield, and Musacchia matched him not much later with a sacrifice fly in between.
With a 15-2 lead, things were looking all Huskies.
William & Mary tried to chip away at the lead. Rush blasted a one-run homer, but the Tribe still found themselves on their last leg at the bottom of the seventh. With a pair of RBI singles, they looked like they had found some momentum, but Huskies reliever Carson Walsh quieted the crowds and ended the afternoon early for Northeastern.
What a tough senior day for the Tribe.
It hasn’t been an uncommon storyline this season that the Huskies sweep a series. Nor that the pitching rotation puts up immaculate work against any opponent. But the biggest advancement in Northeastern’s game was the top-to-bottom batting dominance. Although William & Mary’s collective 8.86 ERA already doesn’t bode well for them and the Huskies have plenty of double-digit games under their belts, putting up consecutive 15-run games is still a large feat, especially when much of that weight is shouldered by the bottom of the order.
So with another sweep, the CAA title, and a new program record, the 2025 Huskies keep on trucking. It’s been a dominant squad this season, but they just have one more week before conference play starts and the real test begins.
The Huskies will remain on the road briefly for a midweek contest at University of Connecticut. Andrew Fielding will have the call from Storrs, CT when the first pitch flies Tuesday at 6:05 p.m.