The Boston College baseball team played their penultimate series of the regular season over the weekend, splitting an abbreviated two game set with non conference opponent New Jersey Institute of Technology. The two teams traded wins on a Sunday doubleheader after rain on Saturday postponed the series opener.
The Eagles dropped the opener on Sunday one run, falling 8-7 in what was a pretty ugly game from start to finish. Brady Miller got the start in this game and for the second time in a row, the sophomore
really struggled, allowing nine hits and seven earned runs in just 4.1 innings. Miller had been sensational on the season through the end of April, but two bad outings against NJIT and Clemson has seen his season ERA jump by over two full runs, from 2.58 to 5.22. He allowed three runs in the first two innings as BC fell behind early on before pushing across one in the third and three of their own in the fourth to take a 4-3 lead. That lead didn’t last long, however, as NJIT put together a five-run fifth inning, with a three-run home run serving as the big blow that made it a 8-4 game. BC cut it to 8-6 in the bottom of the fifth and pushed across another run to make it an 8-7 game in the sixth, but that was as close as they would get, as NJIT managed to shut the door with three scoreless innings to end the game and take the first end of the doubleheader.
BC got off to a much better start in game two, taking a quick 2-0 lead in the first inning and holding onto that as AJ Colarusso pitched three scoreless innings to start the game. Colarusso came out after three innings of work, however – likely because he is slated to start the opener against Georgia Tech on Thursday – and NJIT immediately got to BC’s bullpen with three runs in two innings against Tyler Mudd to take a 3-2 lead. The Eagles were able to bounce back quickly this time, as they put together a three-run bottom of the fifth to retake the lead before adding another run in the sixth to make it a 6-3 game. The bullpen stabilized from there for BC, with Sean Hard, Kyle Kipp, and Gavin Soares combining for four scoreless innings to close things out and give BC a split.
A few different Eagles had big days at the plate. Kyle Wolff stayed hot with a home run in the first game and added another RBI in game two. Ben Williams had two hits and two RBI in game one while Julio Solier had two hits of his own and reached base four times in game two.
UP NEXT
The Eagles will finish up their regular season this weekend with a massive home series against ACC leaders Georgia Tech. BC still controls their own destiny as far as finishing in the top four in the conference and locking up a double bye in the ACC Tournament, but they’ll need at least a win or two if they don’t want to rely on some help from other teams around the conference. Georgia Tech will come into this series sporting a record of 42-8 on the season and 22-5 in the ACC. They are currently ranked #3 in the country and should provide a great final test for this BC team as the postseason approaches. It’s a bit of a different schedule this weekend, with the teams playing a Thursday, Friday, Saturday series. This will almost certainly be the last time that the Eagles play at home this season, so here’s hoping they get a ton of support at the end of what has already been a terrific season by any metric.
