Pitching against a top-ten ranked team is difficult. Minding the pitch clock makes things even harder.
Joey Ryan stared down Virginia leadoff hitter Eric Becker in a full count. The only problem was the home plate umpire was already waving the batter to first before Ryan could begin his motion. Ryan risked tarnishing his dominant innings of relief with his pitch clock violation, bringing up the tying runner.
But when No. 9 UVA (9–5, 1–2 Atlantic Coast) sent its second and third place batters to the plate, Ryan refocused, retiring them and ending the seventh inning with the Cavaliers going runless and leaving two runners on base.
The Eagles (6–6, 2–1 Atlantic Coast) tried to extend Ryan’s outing to five innings after he came in to relieve Dylan Howanitz in the bottom of the fifth. Ryan could not end BC’s 6–3 win himself, though.
“Joe kept saying he felt good and he wanted to finish”, BC head coach Todd Interdonato said. And you know, a guy that works that hard in the weight room and with his physicality, you feel like you trust him. And then obviously lost it there in the ninth, but A.J. [Colarusso] picked him up.”
Ryan worked efficiently in the eighth inning, giving up one hit and no runs, then threw three pitches in the ninth. All three pitches missed and two hit batters. At that point, Colarusso entered to face the game-tying run.
“[Colarusso] came to us in the middle of the week and said he felt like he was ready to go, and he was ready to be aggressive,” Interdonato said. “We decided to use him out of the pen on Friday, which worked out. Then he came to us today and said he felt great, so we had him available. Thankfully we did.”
The runners were wiped away just as quickly as they were let on. BC turned a double play and Colarusso threw a flyout to end the game. The combined efforts of Ryan and Colarusso shut down the Cavaliers for the final five innings.
“We talked pregame about wanting to get Joe Ry the ball with the lead,” Interdonato said. “When we had the lead after four, we felt like we needed to go to him. Joe Ry and their kid were just matching each other out-for-out the whole way through. And then, thankfully, we had A.J. down there ready to go again, who came in and obviously did a monster job.”
The Eagles’ offense kicked off when speedster Adam Magpoc reached on a seeing-eye single in the second inning.
A softly-hit groundout moved Magpoc to second base and brought red-hot Esteban Garcia to the plate. Garcia ripped a line drive into left-center field and Magpoc came home without a throw.
“First of all, the weekend [Garcia] put up was incredible,” Interdonato said. Nick [Wang] went out on Friday, he had to come in, and was just one of our best offensive players. Really proud of him, especially for that being his first regular playing time in his career.”
An infield hit in the third inning allowed for a BC rally and a three run homer from Jack Toomey. Sam McNulty also scorched a ground ball that kicked away from the third baseman and brought in two runners in the top of the fourth.
BC was rewarded for putting the ball in play.
“I thought our two-strike approach all weekend was really good,” Interdonato said. “If you go back to the inning that Toomey hit the home run—two-strike single from [Kyle] Wolff, ball in play, two strike single from [Patrick] Roche, line drive to right, then Toomey got the hanger that he hit out.”
Saturday’s game didn’t go as well as the series finale did, as BC dropped its game 22–16.
RBI singles from Adam Magpoc and Jack Toomey in the first inning, plus an unearned run off a throwing error from Patrick Roche, gave BC a 3–0 lead, but Virginia put up two runs in the bottom half of the inning and another in the third to tie things up.
Three more runs in the fourth inning reinstated a three-run BC lead. Virginia went ahead when it was its turn to bat, however. Henry Godbout hit a 3RBI triple and Chris Arroyo cranked a 2RBI home run.
A three-run seventh inning gave the Eagles the lead, but they were countered by an outpouring of UVA runs. The Cavaliers faced four different pitchers in the seventh and tacked on nine runs.
On Friday, the Eagles won the first game of the series thanks to a five-run eighth inning. Sam McNulty led off with a single and Josiah Ragsdale homered behind him to tie the game at four runs.
A walk and a double caused UVA to intentionally walk Adam Magpoc to create a forceout. Vince Cimini knocked in the go ahead runs after Magpoc was walked, though.
A.J. Colarusso (1–1) retired the Cavaliers in the ninth, earning a win with 3.1 scoreless innings of relief.
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