Baseball beats Northeastern Sunday to avoid series sweep

Staff Reports

Last season, VCU’s baseball team went from being an unheralded and under-the-radar squad to a conference power, and their journey led them all the way to a CAA championship.

This season, with a much larger target on their back – and without a group of seniors that included slugger Joe Van Meter, now a member of the Texas Rangers in the MLB – the Rams are finding results tougher to come by.

VCU was a meager 13-18 heading into a weekend set against the Huskies of Northeastern and had a conference series record of 2-2 on the season. And even in the series they lost – to Old Dominion and James Madison – they had managed to avoid the notorious series sweep.

That streak of now getting swept, however, was thrown into direct doubt Friday after Northeastern nudged past VCU in both games of a double-header, setting up a deciding match in the third and final game of the series Sunday.

The Rams delivered, though: Two homeruns late in the game were enough to put VCU on top of Northeastern 4-3, and they were able to keep the lead the rest of the way to avoid the sweep.

Game one:

Rams pitcher Seth Cutler-Voltz pitched a complete game – as did Huskies starter Les Williams – but the Rams couldn’t capitalize as the Henrico High School product surrendered five runs (two earned) on six hits and eight strikeouts.

VCU had a 2-1 lead heading into the eighth inning, when a fielder error extended the inning and led to the Huskies scoring three runs. Northeastern never relented it either and won the first game of the night 4-2.

Game two:

Northeastern was able to extend its personal winning streak to seven games with its win in the nightcap of the day’s double-header.

This time, VCU’s pitcher Kyle Haynes went seven innings for the Rams while only yielding one run off of four hits.

But Northeastern pitcher Andrew Leenhouts was in inspired form, giving up no runs in 8.1 innings pitched. And Huskies closer Dylan Maki didn’t give up anything either over the final two at-bats to send the Rams heading into game three looking to avoid a sweep.

Game three:

The two teams were originally slated to play the final game of the series on Saturday, but torrential rains forced the game to be postponed to Sunday.

VCU drew first blood when they went up 2-0 in the bottom of the third frame off of runs by sophomore Nick Kime and freshman Bill Cullen.

Northeastern cut the lead to 2-1 before VCU pushed it back to 4-1 with two solo home runs in the seventh inning, one each by Kime and senior Michael Cheatham. The Huskies were able to cut the lead to one at 4-3 but were not able to get any closer as the Rams avoided what would have been their first sweep of the season.

VCU remains rooted towards the bottom of the CAA standings, now eighth out of 11th in the conference. The Rams will get back out on the diamond on Tuesday to face VMI in a one-off game before traveling down to Williamsburg for a three-game set against the sixth-placed Tribe next weekend.