Last week, Boston College baseball lost the Beanpot Final to Northeastern and dropped two of three to No. 14 Wake Forest. This week, they hosted a home game against the UConn Huskies (17-17) before traveling to South Bend, Indiana to face the 17-18 Notre Dame Fighting Irish.
Birdball took care of business on Wednesday against UConn, winning 8-2. After falling behind early, the Eagles tied the game in the second inning and cruised after that. The Huskies scored their only two runs on a homer in the first inning. UConn collected three hits in the opening frame but only managed four hits the rest of the way in a dominant showing from BC pitching.
Jordan Fisse started the game and went three innings, giving up two runs and striking out two. Brian McMonagle earned his third win of the season after throwing two scoreless innings and Aidan Crowley, Travis Lane, Brad Lombardi, and Beck Milner combined to pitch four innings of scoreless, hitless ball.
The Eagles tied the game on RBI singles from Sam McNulty and Adam Magpoc in the second inning and took a 5-2 lead in the third after Parker Landwehr, McNulty, and Kyle Wolff all had run-scoring knocks. Birdball extended its lead in the fourth with another double from Wolff and a single to center by Vince Cimini. The Eagles tacked on another run in the eighth and earned a season sweep over the Huskies with the 8-2 win.
Sam McNulty went three-for-four with three RBI and Kyle Wolff had two doubles and one RBI. Beck Milner also pulled double duty, pitching 1.2 scoreless innings and collecting a single, a walk, and scoring two runs.
The Eagles traveled to South Bend for the weekend and didn’t get off to a hot start in Friday’s game. BC lost 14-3 in seven innings in a game where they saw little go right. Birdball pitching surrendered 16 hits, six walks, and 14 runs and Notre Dame scored nine combined runs in the first two innings.
BC got on the board in the third on a fielder’s choice and an RBI single. Barry Walsh returned for his first game since March 2 and collected a pinch-hit RBI double in the sixth, but that was all the offense could muster.
On Saturday, BC’s pitching struggled mightily again: the staff gave up nine runs and thirteen hits en route to a 9-4 loss. BC was already losing 4-1 after the first inning before they pulled back within one run in the third inning. But the Irish scored two runs in the bottom of the third and didn’t look back. BC’s offense had thirteen hits but just couldn’t scratch runs across when they needed to. Magpoc had three hits and two RBI, Leary and Landwehr had two hits each, and Wolff had three hits. Travis Lane, Aidan Crowley, and Brad Lombardi all pitched one scoreless inning apiece to finish the game.
Unfortunately, the Eagles couldn’t avoid the series sweep and were no-hit over seven innings, losing the series finale 13-0. It was a rough weekend for BC pitching, as the staff gave up 36 runs in just three games.
BC is now 20-19 on the season; the team will try to rebound on Thursday, April 25 when they play their 2024 ALS Awareness Game in Fenway Park against Virginia.