The Northeastern Huskies have put together a masterpiece of a season. After receiving their highest D1Baseball ranking in program history, tabbed at No. 19, with the best record (45-9) and the longest win streak (24 games) among the nation’s 301 Division I baseball teams, this year’s squad has been barking with the big dogs.
Nestled in frigid Brookline, Massachusetts, over 700 miles away from the next top-25 baseball team and the only ranked team in the northern half of the United States, the Huskies will be on the road for the remainder of the season, however long it lasts.
Despite multiple national rankings over the past few seasons, Northeastern hasn’t hoisted their own conference trophy since the team’s first CAA title in 2021, including an 0-2 early exit shock in last year’s double-elimination tournament. This year, however, the unlikely baseball powerhouse looks to spin a different story.
The CAA tournament — and Northeastern’s search for redemption — kicks off in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina on Wednesday, and while the top-seeded Huskies have a first round bye, there’s still the potential to go five games this week. That can put a big strain on a team, especially the pitching staff.
Northeastern only has two conference losses this season –- a 3-2 extra-innings nailbiter in the CAA opener against Towson and an 18-8 mercy-rule defeat at Campbell. Those are the Huskies’ only two losses in the past two calendar months. And what’s interesting is that they both came when Northeastern’s starting pitching rotation wasn’t fully settled. Both Charlie Walker, who started against Towson, and Jack Bowery, who started at Campbell, aren’t part of the Huskies’ typical four-man crew, which consists of wondrous weekenders Will Jones, Aiven Cabral, and Jordan Gottesman, and midweek maestro Max Gitlin.
Walker (1.27 ERA, 0.73 WHIP) — who gave up no earned runs in a 5-inning performance in that Towson loss — is the extra arm the Huskies can rely on if they have a fifth game in the mix, but his skills are better utilized in the closing role, and it’s likely that Northeastern will opt to use him to prevent that fifth game instead.
As a whole, the Huskies own an NCAA-best collective 2.94 ERA and 1.05 WHIP (2.38 ERA, 0.95 WHIP in-conference), and all four usual starters bring down the average.
But for Northeastern, the pitching isn’t just about the pitchers. This is a team that rarely relies on Ks to get batters out, with just 8.4 Ks/9. Instead, it’s soft contact that typically gets the job done, so the Huskies will need fielding work to be impeccable come tournament time. Luckily, they’ve only had one error since May 1, so it shouldn’t be a point of concern.
The biggest challenge for Northeastern will be the bats. It’s no question that the Huskies have some of the best hitters in the CAA, with Cam Maldonado and CAA player of the year Harrison Feinberg checking in at third and fourth in the league with batting averages of .375 and .372, respectively, while sporting OPSs well over 1.000.
But inconsistency could have an impact in the CAA tournament. Of Northeastern’s nine losses this season, five of them were due to cold bats, and three of them were within one run, with the Huskies’ run tally falling under their average 7.4.
And although the scoreboards continue to read nothing but Huskies, some recent games were come-from-behind challenges filled with opponent errors and shouldered by the bottom of Northeastern’s order. And while it’s good to have all your guys get going, you also want your top hitters to be able to come in clutch in crucial situations.
“I felt like our offense was just a little bit off this weekend, but when we decided to take our walks and get hit by pitches and steal bases, then all of a sudden you see all the runs come in,” said CAA coach of the year and Huskies head coach Mike Glavine after Northeastern’s most recent game. “I thought we got a little big with our swings and [they] just tried to do it by themselves instead of passing the baton to the guy behind them. So once we saw that, they realize that’s what we can do.”
Heading into tournament season, Northeastern needs patience at the plate. There’s no doubt that so many of these Huskies can absolutely mash, but hunting for home runs can get them into trouble and discipline is more effective in the long haul. Furthermore, the base paths are where the Huskies really get wheeling. With 181 stolen bases in 224 attempts, a simple walk or hit by pitch can wind up with a runner in scoring position in a heartbeat.
Getting the offense going will be especially crucial if the Huskies wind up facing either of two particularly dangerous teams in the CAA tournament. The first is a familiar foe. Campbell University is the only blemish on the Huskies’ 34-1 run these past two months, and they could be an early stop on the revenge tour. Northeastern is set to play the lowest-seeded winner of Games 1 and 2, and among the quad of William & Mary, Charleston, Elon, and Campbell, the heavy-hitting Camels (81 HR) are the sole troublemakers. While the Camels clock in at third in the division, putting them out of contention for that lowest seed game, a move into the winners bracket could push them in the Huskies’ direction.
The other big name in the mix is the two-time reigning CAA champion UNCW. The Huskies haven’t seen the Seahawks since April 2024, when UNCW drove the Huskies to a home series loss. Prior to that, they were the one barrier between Northeastern and the 2023 CAA title. And they’ve been rolling this year. Behind CAA pitcher of the year Zane Taylor, the Seahawks skated to a 19-8 conference record, good for second in the league.
So although the division-leading Huskies have the nation’s top-ranked pitching staff, strong hitters, and momentum behind them, the trophy is not a lock. The bats need to be hot. The discipline needs to be there. But a title — and a potential deep run in the national tournament — feels a breath away.
“This team is built different,” Glavine said. “This team is not going to change next week. We’re going to go out there and play the same way we have … We’re going to play the next opponent. We don’t know who it is. We’ll be our best and we can rely on the fact that, in all seriousness, we’ve won 22 games on the road and we can play anywhere and we can play any day of the week, any time of the day. We’ve done it all and there’s no reason to believe we won’t do it again next week.”