The Holy War is a long-standing rivalry between two Catholic foes—Boston College and Notre Dame—extending across all four major sports: football, basketball, hockey, and baseball.
The Eagles know wins don’t come easy when these games roll around. But that mindset hasn’t seemed to shift any narratives around BC and Notre Dame’s rivalry recently.
BC had yet to win a Holy War game in the 2024–25 season, and its last came on the hardwood in January 2024.
This time around, in a matchup between the Irish and BC baseball, the Eagles weren’t let off easy, as Notre Dame quickly made its rivalry dominance known in the first inning of Friday evening’s matchup.
But a dominant first was all the Irish had to offer.
After giving up a five-run first inning, the Eagles (16–18, 6–11 Atlantic Coast) battled back with six unanswered runs to climb out of a hole and win the second game of Friday’s doubleheader 6–5 over Notre Dame (16–16, 4–13).
“We thought [Peter Schaefer] was a good matchup for them,” BC head coach Todd Interdonato said. “We thought, you know, that was the right guy to run out there, and Pete just, you know, he just struggled, right? Wasn’t missing by much, but wasn’t throwing enough strikes.”
Schaefer was sent back to the dugout soon after initially coming out of it in the first. The right-hander graduate recorded just one out while allowing four runs on three hits.
Jared Zimbardo led off with a single and followed it up by stealing second. Three consecutive walks and 18 pitches later, the Fighting Irish crossed the plate for the first time in the game, but they weren’t done there.
Schaefer got his first and only out with a strikeout, but an RBI single from Connor Hincks and a two-RBI double from Estevan Moreno scored three more for Notre Dame.
Interdonato had seen enough and sent Tyler Mudd in—an adjustment which eventually proved to be a bright spot from the game.
A sacrifice fly scored Notre Dame’s fifth run, but Mudd only faced two more batters before finally getting the Eagles out of an ugly first inning.
“Putting Tyler in that situation is tough,” Interdonato said. “You kind of fire drill him, and then he goes in there. And he would end up going four-and-a-third, or five-and-a-third scoreless, like, that was great.”
BC gave a quick response in the bottom half, posting one run after Kyle Wolff scored Josiah Ragsdale, who was hit by a pitch earlier in the inning, on a single to right field.
The next three innings became a pitcher’s duel between Mudd and Notre Dame’s Rory Fox, as both teams combined for five hits and no runs in that span.
Fox’s fifth inning didn’t last long, though.
Vince Cimini’s lead-off double and advancement to third base on a groundout got Fox pulled as DJ Helwig took the mound. The pressure was on Notre Dame.
A passed ball brought Cimini home and the score to 5–2, and Ragsdale’s triple two batters later brought some more hope. Jack Toomey’s pop-out, however, put an end to BC’s attempt at a momentum swing.
But the Eagles didn’t let up there.
Two innings later and with Helwig still on the mound, McNulty began a rally with a walk, and Cimini singled to right the next at-bat. Jace Roossien entered as a pinch hitter for Beck Milner and did his job to perfection—his bunt single set up a bases-loaded situation for Patrick Roche, who rocketed a double to right field to cut Notre Dame’s lead to 5–4.
“Today, he was just kind of out of sorts in the box,” Interdonato said about Roche. “We talked about it after game one. He was the first one down here, and then that last at-bat proved to be the most important one, but that was really cool.”
Ricky Reeth took the ball from Helwig after Ragsdale’s strikeout, but a Toomey groundout brought Roossien home to tie the game at 5–5.
Then, after Jacob Burnham and Joey Ryan posted scoreless sixth, seventh, and eighth innings for BC, the Eagles had all the momentum to snag their first lead of the game—and they did just that.
Adam Magpoc entered scoring position by stealing second after hitting a one-out single in the bottom of the eighth. Then, Colin Larson’s RBI double down the left-field line finally gave BC the lead it so desperately needed.
“Larson getting that ball and putting a good swing on and keeping it fair—really cool to see a first-year kid do that,” Interdonato said.
Karl Meyer sealed the emphatic comeback win for BC in a 1-2-3 outing, earning BC a split in Friday’s doubleheader.
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While Friday’s 6 p.m. start ended with a win for the Eagles, BC’s offense failed to muster a single run in the 2 p.m. matchup, eventually falling 2–0 to Notre Dame.
A.J. Colarusso took the mound as the starter and dominated in his four innings of work. Allowing only three hits, the left-handed junior let up zero runs and recorded six strikeouts.
“We just felt like, you know, there’s some indicators we have in the dugout where there’s stuff starting to fall off,” Interdonato said about Colarusso’s outing. “He was one batter away from going through the lineup twice. He could have gone out and faced the nine-hole.”
The Eagles applied pressure in the bottom of the second, putting runners on first and second behind Wolff and Cimini’s singles, but a fielder’s choice put the inning to a close.
The game stayed knotted at 0–0 until the sixth inning as Notre Dame’s Jack Radel pitched for 6.1 innings and only allowed five hits and one walk.
Meanwhile, JD Ogden was Colarusso’s successor. He only faced three batters in the fifth inning thanks to a double play that rendered Zimbardo’s single meaningless. But the sixth inning was not as kind to Ogden.
After a hit-by-pitch and a bunt single to start the inning, a sacrifice bunt put runners on second and third for the Irish. A sacrifice fly and a passed ball scored both threats and gave Notre Dame a late cushion.
Karl Meyer completed the final 2.1 innings, only conceding one hit and giving up zero runs.
BC’s offense struggled, though. The Eagles did not register a hit in three straight innings before smacking two singles in the seventh and eighth. The ninth inning didn’t see much success either.
Toomey led off the final frame with a single, and Magpoc moved him to second base with his single following Wolff’s strikeout. After Larson reached on a fielder’s choice, Cimini was the Eagles’ last hope. But a three-pitch strikeout in Cimini’s at-bat put this one in the books.
“It wasn’t like we pitched poorly after that, it was just kind of … the misplays on the field,” Interdonato said.
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