A 5-run explosion in the fourth inning put Boston College baseball behind versus New Orleans after it failed to post a run in the first half of the game on Saturday afternoon. But an Eagles rally spread throughout the next five innings put them ahead by a run as the game headed into the bottom half of the final inning.
The Privateers had an answer of their own, though.
Extra innings were needed to resolve the final matchup between the squads, as New Orleans (3–3) defended home with a 7–6 victory over BC (2–3) in eleven frames.
“Going down 5–0 and being able to chip back and take a lead and be a strike away from sweeping a doubleheader a few times, give a lot of credit to that,” BC head coach Todd Interdonato said. “Just hurts right now because it’s just hard to see that [loss].”
After three and a half innings of scoreless ball on both sides, Alex Bryant’s fourth inning on the mound began with New Orleans’ Tristan Moore knocking a leadoff double.
Bryant only recorded one out before allowing a run and loading the bases up on a walk and hit by pitch and being pulled.
Tyler Mudd entered a non-ideal situation, but the senior left-hander got an early out on an RBI groundout. From there, though, he walked two straight and conceded a single for three more Privateer runs.
Adam Magpoc stole second, and Josiah Ragsdale scored him on a two-out single to post the Eagles’ first run of the game and cut the lead to 5–1 in the top of the fifth.
“Josiah had a really good day today,” Interdonato said. “You know, he looks like he’s getting a little bit better rhythm offensively—actually all around the field.”
Magpoc had a two-out RBI of his own in the sixth inning to score Patrick Roche, and Jack Toomey followed up with another RBI double to put the New Orleans lead at 5–3.
Mudd shut down the New Orleans offense in 4.2 innings with one earned run after entering the game earlier with the bases loaded.
“We were able to land off-speed pitches pretty consistently out of the bullpen,” Interdonato said about the pitching progressions after last weekend. “Which I thought was a huge difference in, you know, being able to keep them down.”
The Eagles then knotted the game up in the seventh inning aided by Roche’s RBI groundout and Nick Wang driving Wolff home on a single through third base.
Toomey ended the seventh inning with a bases-loaded strikeout, but the Eagles would soon make up for it.
After a blank eighth inning, Roche led off the top of the ninth with a homer to left field to give the Eagles their first lead of the game.
But the Privateers weren’t going to go down easy.
Bobby Chicoine stepped onto the mound to pack things up in the bottom of the ninth, but after Collin Husser advanced to third from his single and two wild pitches, Collin Loupe pleaded for extras with an RBI single to right field.
Neither teams’ momentum carried into the tenth, and a 1-2-3 top of the eleventh from the Eagles put New Orleans in the batter’s box with an opportunity to end it.
It took the Privateers zero hits to walk it off—loading the bases up on walks, intentional walks, and eventually a hit by pitch that gave them the 7–6 victory.
BC’s second game of the weekend series was an offensive spark paired with more solid performances on the mound.
The Eagles spread the scoring across all nine innings, putting together an 11–3 victory over New Orleans.
Wang and Vince Cimini knocked home two runners in the first with a double and single, respectively, and Sam McNulty’s bunt scored Toomey on a throwing error in the second inning.
New Orleans sprinkled in a sac fly to tack on its first run, but BC then scored five unanswered in the fourth and sixth innings to jump ahead 8–1. Ragsdale stayed hot with a two RBI triple in the sixth.
The Eagles’ pitching staff called for the bullpen in the middle game of the weekend series, with seven hurlers making the trip to the mound to combine for only three earned runs in Saturday afternoon’s win.
“The way we executed from start to finish, obviously, you know, it’s almost impossible to shut people out in college baseball,” Interdonato said. “But yeah, I thought we did a great job holding them down pretty much the whole series.”
Ragsdale posted another RBI through the right side and Wolff put the cherry on top with a 2-run homer in the eighth for a BC 11–3 win.
The Eagles’ first game of the weekend was a comeback bid that fell short, as a 3-run seventh inning wasn’t enough to overcome New Orleans in its 5–4 loss on Friday.
Cimini kicked off the Eagles’ scoring by reaching home on a throwing error, but the Privateers had two runs of their own in the second inning from an RBI single and groundout.
The game did not see another run until the sixth inning, when Loupe tacked on his second RBI of the game on a single to right field.
Facing a two-run deficit, Ragsdale, Toomey, and McNulty rattled off RBI singles and a double in the seventh to steal back a lead they hadn’t seen since the second inning.
Peter Schaefer was called from the bullpen in the bottom of the seventh, but unfortunately for the recently-found lead from the offense, New Orleans’ Bryan Loriga answered with a two RBI single.
BC’s offense failed to respond and take the first game of the series in its 5–4 loss, but Interdonato was still hopeful about the early-season improvements he saw.
“I think we’re starting to get the rhythm of the game a little bit,” he said. “I felt like we were playing real baseball again…I feel like the adjustment period was over.”
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