Boston College Athletics
Photo by: John Quackenbos
Birdball Magic Strikes Again In Series Win Over Pack Nine
March 27, 2023 | Baseball, #ForBoston Files
Confirmed: weekend walk-offs are oh-so-sweet.
It was the moment many of the 1,000-plus fans who sat under the Harrington Athletics Village's sun-splashed sky yearned and longed to enjoy. Treated to extra baseball and with the bases loaded in the bottom of the 10th inning, they watched in wonder as Travis Honeyman lofted a fly ball to right field. The routine sacrifice fly was deep enough to score Peter Burns anyway, but a misplay by right fielder Will Marcy popped the ball off his glove and touched off a wild, frenzied reaction.
As Burns sprinted home, the rest of the Boston College dugout exploded towards Honeyman, and the beaming smile of the Major League Baseball draft prospect told the story of a team that never expected to lose both ends of a Sunday doubleheader against an ACC opponent. Boston College knew it would win, even after the visiting NC State Wolfpack built a 7-2 lead in the top of the sixth, and as the Eagles' own right fielder turned to receive his teammates, the transformation of confidence into reality wrote the headline of an 8-7 victory with minimal effort.
"Everybody had a hit and the RBIs all stretched out [through the lineup]," said head coach Mike Gambino of the team's comeback win. "Guys like Barry Walsh are swinging great. Travis hadn't started really going, and we all know Joe [Vetrano] is going to hit better than .235. We all know Nick Wang is going to hit better than wherever he was. We just had a lineup that was working well as a group, and that's the kind of team that this is."Â
Conference weekends in the ACC are known for their grueling nature, but postponing Saturday's game to Sunday's game sent a nervous energy rippling through the Brighton baseball complex after Tuesday's loss at Northeastern and Wednesday's required walk-off over a pesky Sacred Heart team. BC had peaked earlier in the national polls at No. 16 earlier in the week, but after beating NC State in the first game on Friday, an unexpected day off generated an air of the unknown around Sunday.
Neither team could afford a slow start, but the extra rest meant both teams would have to throw the kitchen sink into an excruciating and long day on Sunday. They would have to play 18 innings and the associated emotional toll could derail the day if one team played badly enough or couldn't regain its mojo after the first game.
Indeed, that's exactly what happened to BC after a 12-2 loss resulted in the first application of the new mercy rule around 10-run leads. Transfer stopper Chris Flynn absorbed his first loss since joining BC as a starting pitcher this year, and Eric Schroeder followed him by getting tagged for eight runs across two innings of work. What was a 2-1 lead for the Eagles blew apart when NC State scored five in the sixth, and a six-run eighth inning ended the game early thanks to the new rule built around ending 10-run games after the seventh inning.
"My message postgame was that Flynn had been awesome," Gambino said. "Eric Schroeder has been awesome, and they both scuffled a little bit. To me, when you get blown out in the first game, it's sort of just turning the page. It can be easy because that's not going to happen [frequently]. It's just that baseball can be funny. [We] gave it up, and we moved on [because] they've been doing a great job."
Losing that game had an unintended effect on the second game because, for starters, BC hadn't necessarily played poorly. Flynn and Schroeder suffered through uncharacteristic appearances, but Joe Vetrano's two-run homer in the third inning staked the Eagles to a 2-0 lead over starting pitcher Matt Willadsen, and the 25 batters who he faced across six innings forced him to throw 83 pitches. He was solid, but failing to finish the performance forced head coach Elliot Avent to use Sam Highfill and Baker Nelson for the seventh and eighth innings.
Both of those decisions came back to haunt NC State in the second game after NC State began squandering its 7-2 lead. A four-run sixth again scored runs in bunches, but predominantly using Flynn and Schroeder in the first game allowed Gambino to use both Matt Nunan and Joey Ryan after starter John West threw his customary three innings. Highfill, meanwhile, was brought back into the game in the fifth inning in relief of Dominic Fritton, and the break between the fifth and sixth tightened him enough to hit Patrick Roche with a pitch before Cam Leary doubled to left center.
Highfill visibly lacked something in his tank, and after Burns singled home both Roche and Leary by sending a 1-1 fastball into left field, Nick Wang uncorked a 1-2 pitch over the left field wall that brought BC back within a run. It was where the Eagles essentially started the top half of the inning, and after Cohl Mercado singled to left, Highfill's day ended. Barry Walsh eventually moved Mercado over to third, but he was stranded 90 feet from the dish when Walsh was unexpectedly picked off of first by Justin Lawson.
The miscue cost Honeyman an opportunity to tie the game, but with Lawson pressed into a second inning of work, he hung an 0-1 pitch to Wang that was subsequently sent into the stratosphere by the Holy Cross transfer. The second home run of his afternoon, it landed well beyond the left center field fence and touched off another manic celebration in the dugout and grandstand as the game barreled towards the ninth.
Reliever Julian Tonghini, meanwhile, continued the team's defensive stabilization that began when he arrived on the bump in the seventh inning. Prior to his arrival in the second game, NC State had scored seven runs on eight hits, but the Connecticut native set down the side in order in the seventh and eighth with a strikeout in each inning, and a 1-2-3 ninth ended with consecutive punchouts of both Jacob Cozart and Carter Trice. Parlaying that momentum in a fourth inning of work in the 10th, he induced two grounders, including one on the first pitch to Payton Green, who had previously homered in the sixth, before getting out of the 10th with his fifth strikeout.
The dramatics set a tone for the bottom of the 10th inning against Nelson, who, like Highfill, struggled with his command after pitching in the first game of the doubleheader. He had gotten out of the ninth by retiring Vince Cimini, but his vanishing control after the break into the extra frame resulted in walks to both Burns and Wang. Walsh slapped an infield single two batters later to load the bases, and despite adding a fifth infielder to their defensive lineup, the Wolfpack dropped the series when Honeyman lifted his fly ball to right.
"[We] have complete faith in these guys," Gambino said, "and part of their growth and development is learning how to slump and how to come off of it. Nick Wang is a guy that sometimes, you catch a barrel and it gets you back out of it. He became a different kid; when we got the lead-off walk in the 10th, that's a bunt situation [with a man on base]. I just felt we had the hottest hitter in the state at the plate, and I didn't want to think about [bunting]. That just speaks to how I thought he was hitting. His first [homer], I thought he hit hard. The second one, that hasn't landed yet."
The series win offered another exclamation point to BC's record-setting start to the season, and it erased some of the nervous energy from the Northeastern loss and Sacred Heart walk-off. It kept the Eagles near the top of college baseball's RPI rankings and maintained pace with Atlantic Division-leading Wake Forest in the early stages of the ACC baseball season. At 17-5, BC vanquished another nationally ranked opponent and stood likely to gain national standing as the top Northeast-based team in the Division I polls, and after entering this week's D1Baseball.com rankings at No. 16, a shot at catching several SEC schools stood as a strong possibility.
Within that significant spotlight, attention now turns to Tuesday's game at Connecticut, which won the Big East in its first two years back in the conference and is in the process of defending four consecutive national tournament berths. Having opened a new facility at Elliot Ballpark in 2021, the Huskies and head coach Jim Penders quickly moved into the top of the New England baseball power polls, and last year's team advanced out of Maryland's College Park Regional to defeat No. 2 Stanford in the first game of the best-of-three Super Regional.Â
They ultimately lost an opportunity at advancing to the College World Series after dropping the second and third games to the Cardinal, but this year's team enters Tuesday with a 16-5 overall record. Its six-game winning streak most recently involved a three-game sweep over Rutgers. The game against BC is itself a one-game matchup between two teams positioned inside the top-15 of baseball's RPI and could likely serve as a measuring stick for programs fighting for a future national tournament slot.
"[We've] shown all year that we respond to what's thrown at us," Gambino said. "I wasn't surprised [at the wins over NC State] because it says a lot about our toughness and grit and how much [the team] cares about each other."
BC and UConn are scheduled for a 3:05 p.m. first pitch from Elliot Ballpark in Storrs, Connecticut with broadcast information available through the Huskies' UConn-Plus streaming service at UConnHuskies.com.
As Burns sprinted home, the rest of the Boston College dugout exploded towards Honeyman, and the beaming smile of the Major League Baseball draft prospect told the story of a team that never expected to lose both ends of a Sunday doubleheader against an ACC opponent. Boston College knew it would win, even after the visiting NC State Wolfpack built a 7-2 lead in the top of the sixth, and as the Eagles' own right fielder turned to receive his teammates, the transformation of confidence into reality wrote the headline of an 8-7 victory with minimal effort.
"Everybody had a hit and the RBIs all stretched out [through the lineup]," said head coach Mike Gambino of the team's comeback win. "Guys like Barry Walsh are swinging great. Travis hadn't started really going, and we all know Joe [Vetrano] is going to hit better than .235. We all know Nick Wang is going to hit better than wherever he was. We just had a lineup that was working well as a group, and that's the kind of team that this is."Â
Conference weekends in the ACC are known for their grueling nature, but postponing Saturday's game to Sunday's game sent a nervous energy rippling through the Brighton baseball complex after Tuesday's loss at Northeastern and Wednesday's required walk-off over a pesky Sacred Heart team. BC had peaked earlier in the national polls at No. 16 earlier in the week, but after beating NC State in the first game on Friday, an unexpected day off generated an air of the unknown around Sunday.
Neither team could afford a slow start, but the extra rest meant both teams would have to throw the kitchen sink into an excruciating and long day on Sunday. They would have to play 18 innings and the associated emotional toll could derail the day if one team played badly enough or couldn't regain its mojo after the first game.
Indeed, that's exactly what happened to BC after a 12-2 loss resulted in the first application of the new mercy rule around 10-run leads. Transfer stopper Chris Flynn absorbed his first loss since joining BC as a starting pitcher this year, and Eric Schroeder followed him by getting tagged for eight runs across two innings of work. What was a 2-1 lead for the Eagles blew apart when NC State scored five in the sixth, and a six-run eighth inning ended the game early thanks to the new rule built around ending 10-run games after the seventh inning.
"My message postgame was that Flynn had been awesome," Gambino said. "Eric Schroeder has been awesome, and they both scuffled a little bit. To me, when you get blown out in the first game, it's sort of just turning the page. It can be easy because that's not going to happen [frequently]. It's just that baseball can be funny. [We] gave it up, and we moved on [because] they've been doing a great job."
Losing that game had an unintended effect on the second game because, for starters, BC hadn't necessarily played poorly. Flynn and Schroeder suffered through uncharacteristic appearances, but Joe Vetrano's two-run homer in the third inning staked the Eagles to a 2-0 lead over starting pitcher Matt Willadsen, and the 25 batters who he faced across six innings forced him to throw 83 pitches. He was solid, but failing to finish the performance forced head coach Elliot Avent to use Sam Highfill and Baker Nelson for the seventh and eighth innings.
Both of those decisions came back to haunt NC State in the second game after NC State began squandering its 7-2 lead. A four-run sixth again scored runs in bunches, but predominantly using Flynn and Schroeder in the first game allowed Gambino to use both Matt Nunan and Joey Ryan after starter John West threw his customary three innings. Highfill, meanwhile, was brought back into the game in the fifth inning in relief of Dominic Fritton, and the break between the fifth and sixth tightened him enough to hit Patrick Roche with a pitch before Cam Leary doubled to left center.
Highfill visibly lacked something in his tank, and after Burns singled home both Roche and Leary by sending a 1-1 fastball into left field, Nick Wang uncorked a 1-2 pitch over the left field wall that brought BC back within a run. It was where the Eagles essentially started the top half of the inning, and after Cohl Mercado singled to left, Highfill's day ended. Barry Walsh eventually moved Mercado over to third, but he was stranded 90 feet from the dish when Walsh was unexpectedly picked off of first by Justin Lawson.
The miscue cost Honeyman an opportunity to tie the game, but with Lawson pressed into a second inning of work, he hung an 0-1 pitch to Wang that was subsequently sent into the stratosphere by the Holy Cross transfer. The second home run of his afternoon, it landed well beyond the left center field fence and touched off another manic celebration in the dugout and grandstand as the game barreled towards the ninth.
Reliever Julian Tonghini, meanwhile, continued the team's defensive stabilization that began when he arrived on the bump in the seventh inning. Prior to his arrival in the second game, NC State had scored seven runs on eight hits, but the Connecticut native set down the side in order in the seventh and eighth with a strikeout in each inning, and a 1-2-3 ninth ended with consecutive punchouts of both Jacob Cozart and Carter Trice. Parlaying that momentum in a fourth inning of work in the 10th, he induced two grounders, including one on the first pitch to Payton Green, who had previously homered in the sixth, before getting out of the 10th with his fifth strikeout.
The dramatics set a tone for the bottom of the 10th inning against Nelson, who, like Highfill, struggled with his command after pitching in the first game of the doubleheader. He had gotten out of the ninth by retiring Vince Cimini, but his vanishing control after the break into the extra frame resulted in walks to both Burns and Wang. Walsh slapped an infield single two batters later to load the bases, and despite adding a fifth infielder to their defensive lineup, the Wolfpack dropped the series when Honeyman lifted his fly ball to right.
"[We] have complete faith in these guys," Gambino said, "and part of their growth and development is learning how to slump and how to come off of it. Nick Wang is a guy that sometimes, you catch a barrel and it gets you back out of it. He became a different kid; when we got the lead-off walk in the 10th, that's a bunt situation [with a man on base]. I just felt we had the hottest hitter in the state at the plate, and I didn't want to think about [bunting]. That just speaks to how I thought he was hitting. His first [homer], I thought he hit hard. The second one, that hasn't landed yet."
The series win offered another exclamation point to BC's record-setting start to the season, and it erased some of the nervous energy from the Northeastern loss and Sacred Heart walk-off. It kept the Eagles near the top of college baseball's RPI rankings and maintained pace with Atlantic Division-leading Wake Forest in the early stages of the ACC baseball season. At 17-5, BC vanquished another nationally ranked opponent and stood likely to gain national standing as the top Northeast-based team in the Division I polls, and after entering this week's D1Baseball.com rankings at No. 16, a shot at catching several SEC schools stood as a strong possibility.
Within that significant spotlight, attention now turns to Tuesday's game at Connecticut, which won the Big East in its first two years back in the conference and is in the process of defending four consecutive national tournament berths. Having opened a new facility at Elliot Ballpark in 2021, the Huskies and head coach Jim Penders quickly moved into the top of the New England baseball power polls, and last year's team advanced out of Maryland's College Park Regional to defeat No. 2 Stanford in the first game of the best-of-three Super Regional.Â
They ultimately lost an opportunity at advancing to the College World Series after dropping the second and third games to the Cardinal, but this year's team enters Tuesday with a 16-5 overall record. Its six-game winning streak most recently involved a three-game sweep over Rutgers. The game against BC is itself a one-game matchup between two teams positioned inside the top-15 of baseball's RPI and could likely serve as a measuring stick for programs fighting for a future national tournament slot.
"[We've] shown all year that we respond to what's thrown at us," Gambino said. "I wasn't surprised [at the wins over NC State] because it says a lot about our toughness and grit and how much [the team] cares about each other."
BC and UConn are scheduled for a 3:05 p.m. first pitch from Elliot Ballpark in Storrs, Connecticut with broadcast information available through the Huskies' UConn-Plus streaming service at UConnHuskies.com.
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