Eric Sorenson of D1 Baseball was at Friday's NU-Towson game before going to see Miami-BC later that night.
Here's his report...
Friday in Boston: Two Beantown Shutdowns Courtesy Of N’Eastern, BC
AT THE BALLPARK Eric Sorenson
BOSTON — A warm, blustery day in Boston turned into a bitterly cold, bitingly windy night in Boston. That made for a perfect chance to take in a Beantown twin bill with Northeastern and Boston College starting conference weekends at home and both of them treating their guests to a pair of rude shutouts.
Game one was in Brookline, where Northeastern put the squeeze on Towson with the dazzling pitching of Cam Schlittler and a few hard-to-come-by hits, giving the Huskies a 3-0 clampdown win.
Game two was at beautiful new Brighton Ballpark in Brighton, where Miami came calling on BC for the first of three ACC games. And well… it was ugly. BC breezed to a stunning 13-0 win.
Two games. Two shutouts. Two home teams go home happy.
WHAT I SAW AT FRIEDMAN DIAMOND
Traditionally the Huskies have always been a good pitching team that plays solid defense. Those two factors would play up huge today as they held Towson to four hits and zero runs.
HOW IT WENT DOWN:
When the halfway point of the game came around, both Towson starter Josh Sells and Northeastern starter Cam Schlittler were both dominating in a 0-0 game. They were also doing it in two different ways. Sells was getting ground balls left and right, keeping his pitch total low. Schlittler was on the overpowering side, striking out eight batters. Both were giving up just two hits at the time.
But the Huskies were finally able to break the 0s on the scoreboard in the bottom of the fifth with the help of a leadoff error by the Tigers, along with two sacrifice bunts (one a safety squeeze that scored a run) and two singles.
Another run was added in the seventh as another Tiger mistake (a hit batsman) would start the inning and that run would come around to score. Ben Malgeri was plunked, then stole second and was singled home by nine-hole hitter Spenser Smith. That would be it, scoring-wise.
The Tigers managed to get runners to third base only twice, in the seventh and eighth innings, but both times were rebuffed. Schlitler escaped having a runner on third threat by inducing a pop-up for the final out. His only mistakes of the game came in the eighth when he started the frame by plunking the first two batters he saw, leading to his exit. Saves ace Eric Yost came in and got three straight outs, two via strikeout, to save the shutout.
Brandon Dufault allowed only a two-out walk in going four-up, three-down to lock down the final inning.