Photo by: Joe Sullivan
Beanpot Remains Home As Season Intensity Levels Up
April 12, 2023 | Baseball, #ForBoston Files
Wang's walk-off keeps the Commonwealth's trophy exactly where it belongs.
The sun had long set behind the Harrington Athletics Village press box by the time Nick Wang stepped into the batter's box to kick off the bottom of the ninth inning. The Beanpot sat visible through the windows behind him after Boston College relinquished it to start the two-week trip through Massachusetts' college baseball landscape, and the Ivy League's Harvard Crimson, a five-time holder of the trophy, were hoping a hard-fought evening in Brighton wouldn't end in dramatic, walk-off fashion.
Relief pitcher Callan Fang was in his second inning of work, and like the four arms preceding him over the first seven innings, he saw his first three outs dance in and out of traffic and trouble against a Birdball lineup that couldn't quite produce with runners on base or in scoring position. One inning earlier, with Travis Honeyman in scoring position and Patrick Roche standing on first after Harvard's 10th issued walk, Fang had struck out Cameron Leary with a picture perfect pitch that left the slugger waving at air. Now facing Wang, BC just hoped to get someone on base to bridge the bottom of a lineup that regularly rallied and rotated runners around the diamond.
Three pitches into the at-bat, though, Wang was able to sit dead red on a get-me-over fastball from the Crimson's first-year reliever. A 2-0 count in his back pocket, the Holy Cross transfer and former Patriot League Rookie of the Year unloaded on a letters-high speedball and uncorked a fly ball deep into the Brighton night. Left fielder Matt Giberti barely moved and simply turned his head as he started towards his dugout. The trophy that sat behind home plate for eight-plus prior innings disappeared, and as Wang leapt into his awaiting teammates, a walk-off winner restored 11th-ranked Boston College into the win column as the Commonwealth's preeminent college baseball power.
"I'm proud of our boys for figuring out a way to come back," said head coach Mike Gambino. "We had some chances early, and I wasn't thrilled with our approaches in the middle of the game. That's not taking anything away from Harvard, but we had plenty of chances and situational at-bats. We had a bit of an ugly fifth inning, but the boys did what they've been doing all year and what we've talked about all year, and responded."
It goes without saying that the Beanpot isn't the ultimate prize of a college baseball season. The trophy is a valuable reminder of the competition level that exists in Massachusetts, but without the exalted status of a local tournament, a game against Harvard simply represents a midweek game that a team competing for national status really can't afford to lose. Three days earlier, a short week's road trip to Louisville ended in a three-game sweep loss and the first time BC dropped an ACC series this season, and hopes of hosting a national regional and Super Regional were temporarily put on pause as a nervous energy started swirling around the Pete Frates Center.
A loss to Harvard, a team ranked 225th out of the 305 teams in the RPI, would have lent further damage ahead of Wednesday's trip to Dartmouth, and after BC built a three-run lead in the first three innings, the Eagles found themselves trailing in the fifth after the Crimson scored four runs in the top of the fifth inning.
Harvard itself played a frisky style that threw complementary kitchen sinks at the BC lineup. Starter Will Jacobsen threw three innings before yielding to Jack Smith, and Smith's heavy ball preceded a hot-and-cold appearance by James Kirkpatrick. Power left-handed fireballer Tim Williamson relieved him after the Eagles tied the game in the sixth, and he relied on a 90-plus miles per hour fastball before the lanky rookie Fang took over in the eighth.
They employed a bend-don't-break strategy against BC's vaunted lineup and allowed the Eagles to reach base, but the overthrowing that led to 10 walks over the first eight innings didn't yield too much damage because the offense simply couldn't push runners across. It was a steady placement of arms, and despite seven BC hitters gaining at least one hit, Harvard grabbed the lead with an opportunistic inning against Matthew Nunan and Andrew Roman.
That it was Roman who allowed the inherited runners was a surreal experience given the Salve Regina transfer's status as one of the ACC's best relievers, but he eventually settled into two innings of work with three strikeouts. By then, not even Harvard's defensive strategy could have helped, and Joey Ryan and Julian Tonghini combined for near perfection in the final three innings, with Ryan throwing 21 of his 23 pitches for strikes.
"Julian pitched himself into trouble, but he pitched himself out of trouble," Gambino said, "and he made a couple of really good pitches at the end of the ninth. And then Joey Ryan was great. Andrew Roman had his first walk of the season, which is crazy, and in that spot [earlier in the game], [pitching coach] Kevin Vance and I talked about that spot and felt that it was right. It was a leverage spot, so we wanted to get out of there with the lead and stop [Harvard] right there. With guys like Roman, your guys are going to be your guys, but they can't always be perfect."
It led to Wang's walk-off blast in the ninth, and for the second consecutive season, the Eagles clinched a trophy that eluded them in the last two years prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. In both 2018 and 2019, BC lost in the first round of the tournament before winning the consolation game, and in 2018, an 11-inning, extra innings affair produced a 7-4 win for Harvard, which later won its fifth trophy with a win over Northeastern. It prevented, at the time, a fourth consecutive championship for the Birdball program, and after UMass defeated Northeastern in the 2019 title game, the cancellation of the 2020 and 2021 events stretched the Eagles to the longest title drought in a decade. Last year changed that dynamic and restored BC to its perch with wins over Northeastern and UMass, and after last week's seven-run comeback in a slugfest against the Minutemen, the trophy remained in Brighton with the win over the Crimson.
"This is a fun game for everybody," Gambino said. "I got about a million text messages from a million alumni the last couple of days saying, 'Don't let the Beanpot leave.' It's fun, and it's important, and I'll tell you that my single favorite thing in our program is [equipment assistant] Robbie Fisher holding up the Beanpot."
Beanpot aside, the win again righted that ship for BC ahead of the trip to Dartmouth, and with bigger games on the horizon, the three-game series against Duke looms huge over Patriots' Day weekend after the three-game series against Louisville dropped the Eagles to third in the ACC Atlantic Division. There is still the one-game lead over Notre Dame, but the race for the ACC Tournament tightened behind division-leading Wake Forest.
The ACC itself awards the top seeds in the tournament to the division winners, but the next 10 spots are determined by overall league record. Devoid of division splits, the seedings eventually split the teams into four groups of three teams with winners advancing to single elimination brackets.
The tiebreakers, as it stands, are automatically awarded to better seeds, so the top seeds in each pool automatically advance by defeating the winner of the game between the lower seeds. Even after the losses, BC is currently tied with Miami for the No. 4 seed, but Duke, at 7-7, is directly behind both teams for one of the coveted spots.
"We've shown [our ability to rally] over and over," Gambino said, "and it's something that we, as a program, believe is important to our DNA. We're going to always be the Northeast team playing in our conference with the amount of times we're on the road. If we don't deal with [adversity], we aren't going to have a chance, and it's something that's part of the DNA that's helped these guys do a great job."
All three of this weekend's games are available through the ACC Network Extra, with Friday's game starting at 4 p.m., Saturday's game at 2 p.m., and Sunday's game at 1 p.m. As part of Saturday's SpringFest festivities, the Eagles will honor the 10th anniversary of the 2013 Boston Marathon by wearing commemorative yellow and blue uniforms adorned with a Mile 21 logo.
Relief pitcher Callan Fang was in his second inning of work, and like the four arms preceding him over the first seven innings, he saw his first three outs dance in and out of traffic and trouble against a Birdball lineup that couldn't quite produce with runners on base or in scoring position. One inning earlier, with Travis Honeyman in scoring position and Patrick Roche standing on first after Harvard's 10th issued walk, Fang had struck out Cameron Leary with a picture perfect pitch that left the slugger waving at air. Now facing Wang, BC just hoped to get someone on base to bridge the bottom of a lineup that regularly rallied and rotated runners around the diamond.
Three pitches into the at-bat, though, Wang was able to sit dead red on a get-me-over fastball from the Crimson's first-year reliever. A 2-0 count in his back pocket, the Holy Cross transfer and former Patriot League Rookie of the Year unloaded on a letters-high speedball and uncorked a fly ball deep into the Brighton night. Left fielder Matt Giberti barely moved and simply turned his head as he started towards his dugout. The trophy that sat behind home plate for eight-plus prior innings disappeared, and as Wang leapt into his awaiting teammates, a walk-off winner restored 11th-ranked Boston College into the win column as the Commonwealth's preeminent college baseball power.
"I'm proud of our boys for figuring out a way to come back," said head coach Mike Gambino. "We had some chances early, and I wasn't thrilled with our approaches in the middle of the game. That's not taking anything away from Harvard, but we had plenty of chances and situational at-bats. We had a bit of an ugly fifth inning, but the boys did what they've been doing all year and what we've talked about all year, and responded."
It goes without saying that the Beanpot isn't the ultimate prize of a college baseball season. The trophy is a valuable reminder of the competition level that exists in Massachusetts, but without the exalted status of a local tournament, a game against Harvard simply represents a midweek game that a team competing for national status really can't afford to lose. Three days earlier, a short week's road trip to Louisville ended in a three-game sweep loss and the first time BC dropped an ACC series this season, and hopes of hosting a national regional and Super Regional were temporarily put on pause as a nervous energy started swirling around the Pete Frates Center.
A loss to Harvard, a team ranked 225th out of the 305 teams in the RPI, would have lent further damage ahead of Wednesday's trip to Dartmouth, and after BC built a three-run lead in the first three innings, the Eagles found themselves trailing in the fifth after the Crimson scored four runs in the top of the fifth inning.
Harvard itself played a frisky style that threw complementary kitchen sinks at the BC lineup. Starter Will Jacobsen threw three innings before yielding to Jack Smith, and Smith's heavy ball preceded a hot-and-cold appearance by James Kirkpatrick. Power left-handed fireballer Tim Williamson relieved him after the Eagles tied the game in the sixth, and he relied on a 90-plus miles per hour fastball before the lanky rookie Fang took over in the eighth.
They employed a bend-don't-break strategy against BC's vaunted lineup and allowed the Eagles to reach base, but the overthrowing that led to 10 walks over the first eight innings didn't yield too much damage because the offense simply couldn't push runners across. It was a steady placement of arms, and despite seven BC hitters gaining at least one hit, Harvard grabbed the lead with an opportunistic inning against Matthew Nunan and Andrew Roman.
That it was Roman who allowed the inherited runners was a surreal experience given the Salve Regina transfer's status as one of the ACC's best relievers, but he eventually settled into two innings of work with three strikeouts. By then, not even Harvard's defensive strategy could have helped, and Joey Ryan and Julian Tonghini combined for near perfection in the final three innings, with Ryan throwing 21 of his 23 pitches for strikes.
"Julian pitched himself into trouble, but he pitched himself out of trouble," Gambino said, "and he made a couple of really good pitches at the end of the ninth. And then Joey Ryan was great. Andrew Roman had his first walk of the season, which is crazy, and in that spot [earlier in the game], [pitching coach] Kevin Vance and I talked about that spot and felt that it was right. It was a leverage spot, so we wanted to get out of there with the lead and stop [Harvard] right there. With guys like Roman, your guys are going to be your guys, but they can't always be perfect."
It led to Wang's walk-off blast in the ninth, and for the second consecutive season, the Eagles clinched a trophy that eluded them in the last two years prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. In both 2018 and 2019, BC lost in the first round of the tournament before winning the consolation game, and in 2018, an 11-inning, extra innings affair produced a 7-4 win for Harvard, which later won its fifth trophy with a win over Northeastern. It prevented, at the time, a fourth consecutive championship for the Birdball program, and after UMass defeated Northeastern in the 2019 title game, the cancellation of the 2020 and 2021 events stretched the Eagles to the longest title drought in a decade. Last year changed that dynamic and restored BC to its perch with wins over Northeastern and UMass, and after last week's seven-run comeback in a slugfest against the Minutemen, the trophy remained in Brighton with the win over the Crimson.
"This is a fun game for everybody," Gambino said. "I got about a million text messages from a million alumni the last couple of days saying, 'Don't let the Beanpot leave.' It's fun, and it's important, and I'll tell you that my single favorite thing in our program is [equipment assistant] Robbie Fisher holding up the Beanpot."
Beanpot aside, the win again righted that ship for BC ahead of the trip to Dartmouth, and with bigger games on the horizon, the three-game series against Duke looms huge over Patriots' Day weekend after the three-game series against Louisville dropped the Eagles to third in the ACC Atlantic Division. There is still the one-game lead over Notre Dame, but the race for the ACC Tournament tightened behind division-leading Wake Forest.
The ACC itself awards the top seeds in the tournament to the division winners, but the next 10 spots are determined by overall league record. Devoid of division splits, the seedings eventually split the teams into four groups of three teams with winners advancing to single elimination brackets.
The tiebreakers, as it stands, are automatically awarded to better seeds, so the top seeds in each pool automatically advance by defeating the winner of the game between the lower seeds. Even after the losses, BC is currently tied with Miami for the No. 4 seed, but Duke, at 7-7, is directly behind both teams for one of the coveted spots.
"We've shown [our ability to rally] over and over," Gambino said, "and it's something that we, as a program, believe is important to our DNA. We're going to always be the Northeast team playing in our conference with the amount of times we're on the road. If we don't deal with [adversity], we aren't going to have a chance, and it's something that's part of the DNA that's helped these guys do a great job."
All three of this weekend's games are available through the ACC Network Extra, with Friday's game starting at 4 p.m., Saturday's game at 2 p.m., and Sunday's game at 1 p.m. As part of Saturday's SpringFest festivities, the Eagles will honor the 10th anniversary of the 2013 Boston Marathon by wearing commemorative yellow and blue uniforms adorned with a Mile 21 logo.
Players Mentioned
IF/OF
/ Baseball
OF
/ Baseball
LHP
/ Baseball
IF
/ Baseball
RHP
/ Baseball
RHP
/ Baseball
Football: KP Price Media Availability (November 6, 2025)
Thursday, November 06
Football: Head Coach Bill O'Brien Media Availability (November 6, 2025)
Thursday, November 06
Football: Grayson James Media Availability (November 6, 2025)
Thursday, November 06
Earl Grant | The Podcast For Boston: BC Men's Basketball
Thursday, November 06
