Northeastern Uses Strong Pitching Performance To Get Past Elon, 2-1
Rob Washburn
Box Score
MT. PLEASANT, S.C. (May 25, 2023) – Third-seeded Northeastern got a strong performance from its pitching staff and took advantage of a late Elon fielding error to pick up a 2-1 victory over the second-seeded Phoenix in Game 5 of the CAA Baseball Championship on Thursday night at Patriots Point.
Northeastern (43-12) advances in the winner’s bracket and will meet top-seeded UNCW at 4 p.m. on Friday with a berth in the championship game on the line. Elon (32-21) is back in action at 12:30 p.m. on Friday against the winner of the day’s opening contest between Charleston and Delaware.
Three Huskies’ pitchers combined to limit the Phoenix to four hits and record 11 strikeouts. Starter Wyatt Scotti scattered three singles over 6.0 shutout innings and struck out five. Patrick Harrington (6-0) tallied the win despite giving up a run in his inning of work. Griffin Young retired the final six batters of the game – five of them by strikeout – to record his league-leading 10
th save.
Elon also got an outstanding effort from its trio of hurlers. Starter Shea Sprague allowed only a run on six hits over 6.2 innings and fanned five. Ben Simon (1-3) suffered the loss after giving up an unearned run and Liam Dabagian added a scoreless frame.
With the game tied 1-1 in the eighth, Austin Lane opened the frame by reaching on a hard-hit ball that ricocheted off Simon and later moved to second on a groundout. With two outs on a windy night, a dropped fly ball off the bat of Luke Beckstein allowed Lane to come home with the go-ahead run.
Young sealed the victory from there, striking out the first five Elon batters he faced before ending the game on a liner to right.
Northeastern stranded six runners over the first three innings before finally getting one across in the fourth. Gregory Bozzo drew a one-out walk and moved to second on Spenser Smith’s sacrifice bunt. Huskies’ centerfielder Mike Sirota followed with a run-scoring single up the middle to make it 1-0.
Elon used a similar strategy to tie the game at 1-1 in the seventh. Kenny Mallory, Jr. walked and advanced to second on Connor Coolahan’s sacrifice bunt. With two outs, Charlie Granatell drilled a liner up the middle to plate Mallory.
Smith and Lane contributed two hits apiece for Northeastern. Justin Cassella was the lone Elon player with multiple hits, finishing 2-for-4.