Complete Games Highlight First Conference Series Sweep Since 2009

By Kenny Barto

This weekend, the CCSU baseball team came away with four huge road victories against conference foe and in-state rival Quinnipiac. It was the Blue Devils’ first Northeast Conference series sweep in over two seasons, the last coming in 2009 at Long Island.

Even though the series covered three days, Friday through Sunday, the story mostly rested on two pitchers’ performances in the doubleheader on Saturday. Dave Krasnowiecki and Nick Neumann both turned in their second straight complete games, which were instrumental in CCSU getting the weekend sweep. For Krasnowiecki, it was his third shutout in four starts.

“It reminds me of some days when we had Barry Hertzler and Louie Pappariella running out there on Saturdays,” said CCSU Head Coach Charlie Hickey. “It’s a nice way to play, and it pays dividends when you can play five to one or six to one baseball.”

The first game of the series on Friday saw a blowout that inflated the scoreboard to a football-esque score of 26-3. The Blue Devils were led by key offensive efforts by Mitch Wells (5-for-7, 4 RBI), Pat Epps (4-for-7, 5 RBI, HR) and Sean Miller-Jones (3-for-6, 6 RBI, HR).

“Everyone was on base [on Friday],” Hickey said. “We just went out there and had a really good game offensively and were able to keep their offense in check.”

The big win gave both Krasnowiecki and Neumann the momentum and confidence to take the mound and hand in impressive performances on Saturday. Krasnowiecki started off strong by striking out three batters in the first. However, as the case has been all season, he struggled a bit with his command and walked one batter who eventually made it to third after a throwing error on a stolen base attempt, but couldn’t score.

Krasnowiecki didn’t run into any more trouble until the fourth inning, where a leadoff single and another walk put runners on first and second. Quinnipiac used some small ball tactics and advanced both runners to second and third with a sacrifice bunt. With just one out, Krasnowiecki made some key pitches and ended the inning with a strikeout and ground out.

Other than the fourth inning, Krasnowiecki did a great job of scattering his baserunners. He allowed one hit in the fifth, one walk in the sixth and worked a one, two, three seventh to secure yet another shutout. He accumulated only three hits, walked three and struck out six to improve to 4-3 on the season with a 3.02 ERA. Over his last four starts, he has an ERA of just 0.66 (two runs in 27 innings) and has held the opposition to a .157 batting average (14 for 89).

“I had no idea it was that low,” Krasnowiecki said. “I always go back after the fact and look at anything, but that’s definitely surprising, and it makes me feel great about how I’ve done so far.”

On Saturdays, Krasnowiecki shares the mound with another outstanding pitcher in Neumann, who continued his success by starting game two of Saturday’s doubleheader with 4 2/3 innings of perfection.

Neumann simply cruised through the Quinnipiac lineup until the Bobcats got back-to-back hits in the fifth, but was able to ease his way out of trouble with the help of a double play. With no outs in the seventh and a runner on first, Neumann was hit in the foot by a line drive, but it was deflected right to Wells at third base, who was able to quickly get it to first for out number one. Neumann’s tempo seemed to be interrupted, as he gave up one more hit that allowed the first and only run to score for Qunnipiac.

Neumann’s final line stood at seven innings, five hits, one run, no walks and five strikeouts in a seven inning game that took just an hour and 16 minutes.

“I thought all-in-all it was pretty good out there today,” Neumann said. “They were getting themselves out today and in the beginning it was four pitches, four fly balls, so it made it a little bit easier.”

Neumann leads the Blue Devils in ERA (with a minimum of three appearances) at 2.09. He has walked just nine batters in 56 innings.

“It’s like a competition to see who can do better every weekend,” Krasnowiecki said. “I think he fell off a little, couldn’t finish it off in the seventh inning, but it was a good day out there all around.”

Neumann feels the same way about his teammate that starts ahead of him on Saturdays.

“I definitely feed off of him, he’s a hard worker,” Neumann said. “And it helps out our bullpen a lot to be able to come out and throw complete games.”

For Hickey, he embraces the added team chemistry on a day that is supposed to be the toughest of the series.

“It gives you a good feeling when you’re going to play a series that you play four games,” Hickey said. “We haven’t been here in a while, so I trust that we’ll find even better pitching from now on.”

With the Blue Devils going into Sunday for the chance at a sweep, Harry Glynne took the mound for his second straight start in the number four slot of CCSU’s weekend rotation. Glynne turned in an impressive performance, going seven innings, giving up four hits and one earned run while striking out five and not giving up a single walk. Nick Boyd took the ball in the eighth with a 5-1 lead, and gave up four earned runs to the Bobcats. The 5-5 tie continued for four more innings, largely because of good relief pitching from both sides. Josh Ingham pitched 4 2/3 innings of shutout baseball, giving up five hits and struck out eight.

“We saw Josh Ingham come in and get some outs against a team that could taste winning,” Hickey said. “He threw strikes and made the big pitches, and did really well out there.”

With two outs in the 12th inning, Miller-Jones came through with his 10th hit and 11th RBI of the series with a huge home run to left field.

“That felt good,” Miller-Jones said. “As a group we wanted that sweep, and to get the winning run was just felt really good.”

The Blue Devils added a second run from Danny Hickey hitting an RBI single after Tyler Caserta and Normand Gosselin got on base. Josh Ingham worked a scoreless bottom half, completing CCSU’s sweep of Quinnipiac.

“You don’t get caught up with all that stuff,” Hickey said. “It was just an opportunity to come out and take advantage of a team that had been struggling and to put us in a better position as the season winds down.”

The Blue Devils will play their second to last out of conference game at Boston College on Wednesday and will face Sacred Heart over the weekend, who is tied with the Blue Devils for third place in the conference at 15-9.