Jacob Oshinsky/WRBB Sports File
BROOKLINE — Following Northeastern’s first home loss in 361 days against Merrimack College on Tuesday, head coach Mike Glavine wanted more from his top four hitters.
“It starts with the older guys,” he said. “You got to get [Ryan] Gerety, [Harrison] Feinberg, [Carmelo] Musacchia, and [Matt] Brinker going.”
The quartet mustered a 2-for-11 showing in Tuesday’s defeat. In Friday’s series-opener with Elon, the four combined to go 7-for-17 with two home runs and seven RBIs in a 17-5 run-rule win.
“It’s a great win on a Friday to open up a conference weekend,” Glavine said after the game. “We did a lot of things well today, and everyone reached base on offense and pitched well.”
Yet the start told a different story. Glavine gave the nod to junior Robbie O’Connor, Northeastern’s everyday Friday starter, who surrendered two earned runs in the first inning.
A lead-off hit and a hit by pitch began O’Connor’s day before graduate student Brian DuRoff smoked an RBI single through the 5.5 hole to give Elon the game’s first run. The Phoenix extended their lead 2-0 on junior Jared Hall’s groundout.
Graduate student Brian Strange has emerged as head coach Mike Kennedy’s Friday choice after early-season experimentation and entered with the lowest starter ERA on the team. In the bottom of the inning, Northeastern’s offense countered Elon’s two runs with two hits with RISP and benefited from numerous defensive miscues.
Northeastern scored seven times in the frame. But with three Elon errors, only one of the runs counted as earned against Strange. Redshirt Freshman AJ Ashettino popped an RBI double, and in his second plate appearance of the inning, Feinberg smoked a single for his first of four RBIs on the day.
After the first inning, O’Connor settled in and finished the afternoon strongly, tossing six innings on four hits, a walk, and four strikeouts. Elon did add a third earned run to his tally in the fourth.
“He’s hard to hit,” Glavine said. “He did a really good job of pitching after not having a great first inning. We come out and give him the lead back, and then he settled in. He did a really good job.”
The Huskies did the rest of the damage in the middle innings, scoring two runs in the fourth and four runs in both the fifth and sixth frames.
It appeared as if Strange, like O’Connor, settled in; after the nightmare first inning, the hurler sat the next nine down in order. But, with two outs in the fourth, Brinker broke Strange’s groove and ripped a double before Musacchia launched his first round-tripper of the season to left field to give Northeastern a 9-3 lead.
In the fifth inning, the Huskies forced Strange out of the game after junior Chris Walsh plated sophomore Carter Bentley. Kennedy went to sophomore Eric Lintelman, and Northeastern greeted the flamethrower rudely. After Gerety walked, Feineberg laced a two-run single to left that scored Walsh and Gerety. Brinker sent Feinberg home in the next at-bat with an RBI-knock of his own to extend the lead 13-3.
With the game out of reach, the run-rule remained within Northeastern’s grasp, and the Huskies looked for “insurance,” which came in the sixth inning. The first two Huskies reached safely, and Bentley picked up an RBI on a groundout. Then Walsh launched a two-run shot to left center field, followed by an opposite-field Feinberg home run two at-bats later for a 17-3 Northeastern lead.
This “insurance” proved invaluable as Elon scratched across two runs against James Morice in the top of the seventh inning before the senior finally shut the door for a 17-5 win in seven innings.
On the day, Northeastern went 7-for-13 with RISP.
“They just swung it better today,” Glavine said. “We try to stay with the same [RISP] approach. We try to be the same team all the time. It really doesn’t matter the day of the week, and it doesn’t matter who you’re playing.”
Northeastern is back in action on Saturday for game two against Elon. Chase Alexander, Max Schwartzberg, and Daniel Ku have your call on Sports+ with first pitch at 1 pm.
Max Schwartzberg is a junior at Northeastern and covers hockey, basketball, and baseball in print and on air. He is also a Cape Cod Baseball League announcer for the Hyannis Harbor Hawks. You can read his articles here and follow his Instagram here.