PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Punxsutawney Phil was not wrong when he said there would be six more weeks of winter on Groundhog Day.
On a bitterly cold Wednesday afternoon in mid-March, the temperature reached a high of just 37 °F, not the most conducive for a baseball game.
But this is New England. And Northeastern battled their way through the frigid temperatures to secure a bounce-back 7-3 victory over the Brown Bears through some small-ball hitting and aggressive base running.
Teams tend to save their main starters for conference series on weekends, so in typical fashion for a midweek matchup, some atypical arms were seen from both sides. Brown head coach Frank Holbrook, who spent the past two years as an assistant coach at Northeastern, looked to right-handed sophomore Ian Keusch to kick things off on the bump for the Bears.
Keusch entered the game with a 1.80 ERA, albeit a small sample size of 5.0 innings pitched. Control was an issue early for the righty, beginning the game by walking junior outfield Ryan Gerety, plunking senior outfielder Harrisong Feinberg, and then balking to advance them both to scoring position. With no outs, all senior Matt Brinker had to do was ground into a fielder’s choice for Northeastern to score their first. Freshman Anthony Ruggiero followed Brinker up with a fielder’s choice of his own to bring Feinberg home from third after he advanced the play before.
It would take a few more batters for Keusch to escape the top of the first, but after making his way through, sophomore righty David McSweeney took the bump for Northeastern in the bottom of the first. Through his 4.1 innings of work entering the game, he held a 20.77 ERA, with 10 earned runs tallied across the season thus far. But McSweeney was sharp in his three innings pitched Wednesday, starting his outing with back-to-back 1-2-3 innings and pitching his way out of a jam in the third.
After their semi-hot start, Northeastern slowed down a bit offensively, partially due to sophomore righty Bryan Yang entering in relief for Keusch and handling the lineup rather effectively, but the Huskies’ errors on the basepaths did not help the cause. Through the first four innings of work, Northeastern attempted to steal seven bases, with only three runners succeeding, one of which was in a double steal where the lead runner was caught out.
In the bottom of the fourth, the chill seemed to start settling in, especially within the Huskies’ middle infield. With a new pitcher in freshman righty Cooper Maher taking the mound, senior shortstop Carmelo Musacchia and redshirt freshman second baseman AJ Aschettino made back-to-back errors to put two runners on for Brown. Senior outfielder Mika Petersen would capitalize at the dish, lacing a ball to left and bringing home the Bears’ first run of the day. Maher would make a defensive error in the inning as well, overthrowing a pickoff attempt to second base, but struck out the next two batters to end the inning relatively unscathed.
Northeastern would respond in a similar manner, capitalizing on defensive mishaps by Brown. Feinberg ripped a ground ball to third base, and while it was initially fielded cleanly by senior DJ Dillehay, the throw sailed past first base, allowing Feinberg to advance into scoring position. His plus speed would then come into play, as once he made his attempt to steal third, the ball was yet again overthrown, and Feinberg made it all the way home to reclaim Northeastern’s two-run lead.
Maher continued to shove for the Huskies, nearly pitching double his 2.1 total innings tallied heading into the game. He would carry Northeastern through the seventh, the offense tacking on another run in support through another sacrifice chance before Maher’s outing ended. His impressive 68 pitches set a young career high, only allowing two hits, striking out four, and recording 16 effective outs on the 17 batters he faced (two runners reached on errors) in his four innings of work.
“[Maher] has a lot of talent,” said Northeastern head coach Mike Glavine. “He pitched really well all winter long, and we thought he’d have a big role for us this year. He keeps getting better each time out there; he was awesome today.”
Right-handed freshman Cal McBurney took over in relief for Brown in the top of the eighth, and Northeastern’s bats came back to life, with Aschettino singling to center to lead off the inning. The redshirt freshman would go on to reach base in all five of his trips to the plate, tacking on a couple of hits throughout the game.
“[Aschettino] is a guy we need,” Glavine said. “He can hit, he’s got some power, he’s got some speed, he’s played some third, played some second for us, he took some ground balls at first, so he’s a guy that we need out there. [He’s a] speedy guy with a good left-handed bat, and he had a really great day today.”
Another single by sophomore catcher Cooper Tarantino advanced the runner aboard, and freshman infielder Tyler Harmony laid down a sac bunt to bring Aschettino home. Sophomore outfielder Carter Bentley, who entered the game as a pinch hitter earlier, snuck a grounder through the right side of the infield to bring Tarantino home as Northeastern’s sixth run of the day.
Brown would respond with some offense of their own in the bottom of the eighth with a new arm out for Northeastern. Sophomore Angel Cruz, who pitched one scoreless inning in his only appearance against Iowa over a month ago, struggled with command from the get-go. After walking Dillehay, back-to-back doubles from senior outfielder Logan Meusy and sophomore first baseman Christian Butera brought two more runs home for Brown, bringing the score to 6-3. Cruz was able to work his way out of trouble, though, generating a strikeout and groundout to end the inning.
To cap things off in the top of the ninth, the speedy Musacchia, who entered the game having stolen 16 bases in his 17 games played, walked his way to first, then stole second and third on two consecutive pitches. Aschettino launched a fly ball deep enough into left field for Musacchia to tag up and make it seven for the Huskies to cap off the day.
Over the course of the nine innings played, Northeastern stole 11 bases, scored six of their seven runs through sacrifice plays or fielder’s choices, and found ways to plate runners despite the chill in the air taking all the pop out of the baseball. After three straight games of stagnant offense, the bats coming back to life bode well for the Huskies.
“The baserunning was relentless,” Glavine said. “We got thrown out a couple of times, made a couple of mistakes, [Brown] made a couple of good plays, but it didn’t deter our guys from running… We preach trying to score runs in different ways. Small ball is one of the ways we can do it; bunt, run, fake bunt, steal, bunt for a hit, anything we can do to try and score runs.”
That’s not to say that the game went perfectly. Northeastern left 11 runners on base and did not record a single extra-base hit all game. There were a few fielding errors that resulted in some unnecessary runs allowed. Despite that, they were able to grind out a midweek win that should help them regain momentum as CAA play resumes this weekend with a home series against Elon.
Northeastern will host the Elon Phoenix for a three-game home series beginning Friday, March 20, at 2 pm. Max Schwartzberg will provide the call of the game LIVE on WRBB Sports+.
Daisy Roberts is a hockey, basketball, and baseball broadcaster and writer for WRBB Sports. She has been covering Northeastern Athletics for five years. You can read her content here and follow her on X here.