Boston College was predicted to be the ACC bottom feeder, coming dead last in the preseason conference poll. Friday, the Eagles (19-8, 7-3 ACC) welcomed No. 9 Virginia to Chestnut Hill, Mass., while standing at an identical 6-3 conference record, riding a seven-game win streak. The Cavalier (21-6, 6-4) offense struggled for much of the game at the hands of senior left hander AJ Colarusso, eventually dropping the series opener 5-3. It was the first series opener lost by Virginia all so far this season.
“We’ll do a great job of having amnesia,” Coach Chris Pollard said. “Tomorrow is its own separate season and we’ll compete one pitch at a time. Our guys have shown a really good propensity to be able to get off the mat.”
Junior Kyle Johnson, taking the ball for just the second time this season, opened the game with a pair of innings for the Cavaliers. His only mistake came when senior designated hitter Kyle Wolff cranked a homerun over the left field wall to score a pair. From there, sophomore lefty Henry Zatkowski would toe the mound for long relief duties.
“I thought Henry Zatkowski pitched really well,” Pollard said. ”We threw plenty of strikes and limited them to mostly singles. We did a really good job of competing till the very last pitch of the ballgame.”
Zatkowski's performance of six innings and three earned runs would have earned him a quality start had he taken the mound to start the afternoon. Zatkowski coaxed an effective amount of weak contact out of the Boston College lineup, forcing eight groundouts to go along with his three strikeouts.
Zatkowski’s dueling partner Colarusso put on an excellent pitching display of his own. Despite walking three Virginia batters and hitting another pair, Colarusso navigated traffic on the basepaths to the tune of six innings and just a single unearned run.
The top of the Cavalier lineup went especially quiet against Colarusso. The trio of juniors atop the lineup — infielder Eric Becker, outfielder AJ Gracia and infielder Sam Harris reached base just a single time as a group against Colarusso. Gracia and Becker finished the afternoon a combined 0-for-9 at the plate, though they largely stayed out of the strikeout column, sharing just one.
The Eagles touted an incredibly balanced offensive attack, seeing production from all parts of the batting order. Eight of the nine Boston College starters recorded a hit. They also controlled the basepaths offensively, seemingly running at will outside of a lone pickoff of lumbering graduate first baseman Nick Wang. Boston College stole a trio of bases and forced a pair of errors on plays at third base with aggressive baserunning.
“[Boston’s] game is premised on trying to speed you up,” Pollard said. “They want to bunt, they want to run, they want to force you to hurry and make you make a mistake. We did that today … We gave them a couple of runs on hurry plays where we didn't have to be hurrying.”
Several scoring opportunities slipped through Virginia’s hands throughout the game. In the second inning, Zach Jackson stepped up with the bases loaded and a pair of outs. He scorched a low fly ball to straightaway center field. Graduate center fielder Carter Hendrickson snagged the ball over his shoulder as he collided with the outfield wall, ending the inning. In the sixth, a single from junior Jake Weatherspoon helped put runners in scoring position for leadoff man Becker. Becker, however, wasn’t able to come through with a knock, flying out to left field.
It was in the fourth where the Cavaliers scratched across their first run. Weatherspoon smacked a ball up the middle, ricocheting off of sophomore second baseman Ty Mainolfi’s glove before finding its way into center for the RBI.
Sophomore Cesar Gonzalez broke a sweat closing the game for Boston. Tossing the last three innings of the game, Gonzalez found himself facing Becker as the tying run in the ninth inning. The Virginia offense churned to life down to its final out – a walk and back-to-back doubles brought in a pair of runs to put the lead back within striking distance. It turned out to be too little too late, the evening ending on routine groundball for the final out.
The Cavaliers will look to even the series in Boston tomorrow at 2 p.m. Sophomore Max Stammel will take the mound in another lefty-on-lefty starting pitcher faceoff with Eagle graduate Tyler Mudd. Virginia looks to avoid its first series loss of the season and give the Cavaliers a chance at their fourth consecutive ACC series win.
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