STORRS, CT. — Coming off an impressive weekend sweep of Stony Brook University, Northeastern continued its winning ways with a 10-6 comeback win over UConn on Tuesday night. Playing at Elliot Ballpark, Northeastern rode a strong pitching performance and a middle-innings offensive surge to the victory.
Earlier this season, UConn defeated Northeastern 21-5 in a 7-inning run-rule mercy in Brookline. This time, Northeastern answered on the road with a strong opening inning. After redshirt senior left fielder Harrison Feinberg got the night started with a single, he swiped his 40th stolen base of the season and later reached third on an error. Two pitches later, junior center fielder Ryan Gerety kept his bat hot with a sacrifice fly that scored Feinberg for the game’s first run.
UConn responded quickly in the bottom of the first, plating two runs of their own thanks to three straight one-out hits followed by a sacrifice groundout from right fielder Nater Wachter. The visiting Huskies responded immediately, evening the score the score in the top of the second inning on another RBI sacrifice fly, this one from sophomore shortstop Henry DiGiorgio.
UConn grabbed the game’s first multi-run lead in the bottom of the second when center fielder Anthony Belisario launched a two-run homer to right-center field off Northeastern redshirt freshman left-hander Cam Keaveney. Keaveney entered in relief of starter Andrew Basel, and after recording back-to-back strikeouts, he issued a walk. That set the stage for Belisario’s two-run blast that gave UConn a 4-2 lead.
Northeastern’s offense cooled off as redshirt junior Garret Garbinski opened his relief outing with 3.1 perfect innings. Things nearly unraveled for Northeastern when fifth-inning reliever Jack Cropper loaded the bases with three walks in just 13 pitches.
With no outs, head coach Mike Glavine turned to redshirt sophomore David McSweeney to limit the damage. Thrown into a difficult spot, McSweeney allowed only two runs in the inning, both charged to Cropper. He also became the only Northeastern pitcher to throw more than one inning.
Head Coach Mike Glavine spoke after the game about McSweeney’s performance in picking up the pitching win. “I thought he did exactly what we needed to get out of him tonight,” Glavine said. “We always want to use one guy, and someone’s going to have to give us a couple [innings]… McSweeney’s always going to be on that list.”
Trailing by four entering the sixth inning, the Northeastern bats finally cracked the dominant Garbinski, scoring four runs on three hits and capitalizing on costly fielding errors by UConn left fielder Chase Taylor and catcher Chris Cancel.
Senior Matt Brinker, redshirt freshman AJ Aschettino, redshirt sophomore Will Fosberg, and DiGiorgio each reached base safely and eventually scored in the inning. Northeastern tied the game at 6-6.
McSweeney continued to deal in the sixth and seventh innings, while the Huskies’ offense stayed hot. The Huskies would score two more unearned runs on RBI singles from Brinker and Aschettino, assisted by more sloppy Connecticut errors.
In the eighth inning, graduate student Matthew Sapienza entered in relief of McSweeney and struck out the side to quickly send the game to the ninth. The icing on the cake came for Northeastern when l Fosberg capped off his incredible night with a two-out, two-RBI double to give the visiting Huskies the 10-6 lead. Fosberg finished 3-for-5 with two doubles and three RBIs.
Sophomore Andrew Rogovic was called upon in the ninth to lock down the victory. Some command issues led to the bases being loaded after a dropped third strike, but Rogovic ultimately retired the tying run with his third strikeout of the inning to secure the win.
“I thought we showed the ability to come back. For a midweek game, it was intense,” Glavine said. He also spoke on the mentality with the regular season coming to a close. “[We have to] keep the train rolling now. There’s no stopping now, there’s no let up.”
Northeastern will return to play their final series of the regular season against Towson starting on Thursday, May 14th.
Michael Kaminsky is a sophomore at Northeastern in his first year with WRBB. He is thrilled to be a part of the broadcast team and is eager to continue covering his favorite sport as the baseball season progresses. You can read more of his coverage with WRBB here.