BATON ROUGE — UNC Wilmington jumped out to an 8-0 lead through five innings over Northeastern, and the Seahawks weathered a strong sixth inning by the Huskies before pulling away to a 12-6 victory in Game 3 of the Baton Rouge regional on Saturday, UNCW’s first-ever NCAA baseball tournament victory.
UNCW (39-22) advances to a 7:30 p.m. CDT elimination game tonight against the loser of the winner’s bracket matchup between LSU (41-19-1) and Tulane (44-18). Northeastern (27-24) lost its eighth consecutive NCAA Tournament game dating back to the 1974 District I tournament at Fenway Park.
Seahawk starting pitcher Jake Mullis allowed just two hits through the first five innings, but he started the sixth in trouble by walking Brad Czarnowski and giving up a base hit to Tim Bush. Two batters later, the Huskies got on the board on a three-run home run by Chris Emanuele, his second in as many games in the tournament.
Omar Pena flied out following the home run, but Mullis could not retire another batter, walking Arman Sidhu and yielding a single to Miguel Paquette before a two-run double by Matt Morizio drove Mullis from the game and made it 8-5.
UNCW reliever Chris Benton fared little better, giving up an RBI single to Mike Steinberg and walking Czarnowski before Blake Cross came in and induced Bush to pop out in foul territory to end the inning.
The Seahawks added a key insurance run in the seventh on a leadoff home run by Matt Sutton, his team leading 11th of the year.
UNCW grabbed a 3-0 lead in the second with the help of four consecutive two-out hits. The third of those hits was a two-out double by Chip Grawey into the right field corner to score Neal Eichhorn and Brad Denson, and Grawey would score on Matt Wright’s RBI single.
Jamie Hemingway, a first team All-Colonial Athletic Association pick for the Seahwks, led off the third with a single, and was quickly on third following a stolen base and a throwing error by Husky catcher Morizio.
Hemingway scored on a ground ball base hit by Jason Schindler for a 4-0 lead, and two batters later, a bouncing base hit past the mound by Aaron Smith scored Schindler and Russ Simmerman to make it 6-0.
Mullis walked five batters and gave up six hits and six runs in his 5 2/3 innings, but got the win to improve to 8-5. Cross pitched the final 3 1/3 innings to notch his 13th save of the year.
UNCW’s Matt Wright put the game away for good with a three-run home run in the eighth, as he joined Hemingway, Sutton and Denson with three hits each in pacing the Seahawks’ 17-hit attack.
Home plate umpire Danny Everett left the game in the middle of the eighth inning due to heat exhaustion. Everett had been wrapped with ice towels in between innings, but was unable to finish the game. Alternate umpire Chuck Lyon finished the game behind the plate.
Northeastern 000 006 000– 6 7 2
UNC Wilmington 033 110 03x– 12 17 0
Brendan Ryan, Jordan Thomson (4) and Matt Morizio; Jake Mullis, Thomas Benton (6), Blake Cross (6) and Neal Eichhorn, Pat Murphy (8).
WP–Mullis, 8-5.
LP–Ryan, 4-4.
S–Cross (13).
2B–Northeastern: Matt Morizio (11); UNCW: Brad Denson (9).
3B–UNCW: Chip Grawey (1), Neal Eichhorn (1).
HR–Northeastern: Chris Emanuele (5); UNCW: Matt Sutton (11), Mattt Wright (9)
T–3:15.
A–7,352 (paid); 1,275 (actual).
2003 NCAA BATON ROUGE REGIONAL
GAME 3: UNC WILMINGTON vs. NORTHEASTERN
MAY 31, 2003
UNC – WILMINGTON QUOTES
Head Coach Mark Scalf
“Well I felt like, you know offensively we came out and were able to move the baseball early in the baseball game and put some pressure on them. When you look at the line, I think we scored in six of the eight offensive innings so we were pretty pleased with that. Matt Wright, Jamie Hemingway, and Matt Sutton were all big contributors today. From a pitching standpoint, Jacob (Mullis) gave us five good innings and we knew he was getting up in his pitch count about where he usually runs out of gas and especially with it being a hot day today. We were hoping to get him through the sixth but we were not able to do that. Blake (Cross) came in and shut things down in the last three to give us an opportunity to continue to play.”
Outfielder Matt Sutton
“Last night things were pretty rough for our offense and we came out here today and knew that this could be our last game. We came out and attacked early and swung at good pitches. We hit the ball hard, scored some runs early and got some runs behind Jake (Mullis) and gave him the ball for five good innings. Blake (Cross) then came in and held them down.”
Pitcher Blake Cross
“I came in a little early for me because I am not used to throwing more than one or two innings. My last appearance was in the conference tournament and I threw five and that was the longest appearance that I have had all year. I felt confident that I had enough gas to get through until the end. I did not really have any of my good pitches today so luckily people just hit balls at our fielders. My job is to throw strikes and hope that they hit it at somebody and that is what I felt they did today.”
GAME NOTES
- UNC-Wilmington won the first NCAA Tournament game of its 47-year existence on Saturday. The
- Seahawks have participated in Division I for the previous 27 years after being both a Junior College and a member of the NAIA.
- The Seahawks snapped a three-match losing streak with its win on Saturday.
- UNC-Wilmington advanced to play the loser of the winner’s bracket game between Tulane and LSU in Game 5 of the Regional on Saturday at 7:30 p.m.
NORTHEASTERN QUOTES
Head Coach Neil McPhee
“We made a run at them in the middle of the game but we just emptied things out I guess. Their a good hitting team, they put the bat on the ball and made the most of their opportunities. We are such a young team and it was a great learning experience. We are losing only a couple of players off this team and hopefully we will be back here next year. It absolutely could not be a better place to host a regional. People down here are just extraordinarily hospitable to everybody. They make the players feel so at home and welcomed. It’s just a great site and my congratulations to the LSU people.”
Catcher Matt Morizio
“Overall the experience was excellent. I’ve never seen anything like this, tailgating for college baseball. The fact that they were inviting us over afterwards was amazing and the food was pretty good too. As far as hitting, I just swung the bat and felt pretty good. I hit it solid. I got one to land so I felt pretty good with the bat today.”
Outfielder Chris Emanuele
“The regional was great experience. The fans are great behind us and after us at the same time. I guess I just hit the ball really good this week. I swung at good pitches and got some hits.”
GAME NOTES
- Northeastern lost its eighth straight NCAA Tournament contest on Saturday as the Huskies have not recorded a tournament victory since the 1973 season.
- Northeastern’s last NCAA Tournament win came against Providence in a 1973 game held at the venerable Fenway Park.