 Media Credit: Ryan Littman-Quinn and David Givler Although the baseball team was not able to bounce back from a sweep at the hands of FSU and win the Beanpot title at Fenway Park, it still was a great afternoon for baseball.
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Fenway Park appeared to be the perfect venue for Boston College's baseball team to rebound from the weekend sweep by FSU and claim its ninth Beanpot championship.
Essentially playing a home game, the Eagles looked to regain the form that brought them seven straight victories leading up to last Friday.
The University of Massachusetts baseball team took the field with the burden of avenging the last four Beanpot meetings with BC, which all ended in losses. Unfortunately for the Eagles, the only bird seen soaring over Lansdowne Street was the infamous "Fenway Park Hawk," which made its appearance in the bottom of the fifth.
Tuesday's championship match-up was highlighted by UMass starter Mike DiCato. The Winthrop, Mass., native and Malden Catholic alumnus threw eight innings of no-hit baseball in front of the local crowd.
BC's youthful starter was unable to replicate even one inning of DiCato's dominant performance. In fact, freshman Kevin Moran's walk of UMass first baseman Andy Tuetken at the start of the second was all that coach Mik Aoki could take. He called upon senior right hander Ted Ratliff to stop the bleeding. Ratliff obliged and held the Minutemen scoreless until his exit in the seventh. Regrettably, the damage had been done as UMass chalked up three runs in the first.
The three-run lead was all the confidence DiCato needed to stifle the Eagle hitters. When asked if it had been the best game he had ever pitched, he admitted, "Have to say it is, it's the only game I've pitched for a championship and we came out with the win."
The hard-throwing righty seamlessly carried over his 6 2/3 innings of scoreless work in the first-round game against Harvard. All afternoon, he effortlessly painted the outer part of the plate with his deceptively quick fastball. After displaying his command, he kept hitters off balance by mixing in his late-breaking curve. Even when a pitch was left over the heart of the plate, most hitters swung late and simply fouled it away. DiCato displayed a level of pitching that BC has been hard-pressed to find from its starters all season.
2008 Woodie Awards
