Sudol's Two Home Runs Power Eagles On Tuesday

Mike Sudol doubled his season total in home runs and drove in six to help the Boston College Eagles (25-20) beat Northeastern (9-23), 12-6, Tuesday afternoon at Shea Field. The center fielder hit two long balls over the right-field wall, one in the third inning and the other coming in the sixth.

"I thought we played pretty well," said BC head coach Mik Aoki. "All around, I thought it was a pretty good win."

The Eagles' onslaught started in the second inning, with two outs and Anthony Melchionda on first. Brad Zapenas grounded a pitch that found the hole between the first and second basemen for a single, and Melchionda advanced to third on a bobble by Northeastern's right fielder. Garret Smith then hit a hard line drive to the gap in left-center field, scoring both Melchionda and Zapenas.

In the third inning, the Huskies took the lead by hugging foul territory. Pete Castoldi and Matt Miller hit consecutive singles down the left-field line. The following batter, Logan Gillis, sliced a line drive down the right-field line that landed just fair for a double, knocking in Castoldi. After BC pitcher Taylor Lasko got the next batter to pop out, Frank Compagnone hit a scalding grounder down the right-field line out of the reach of the diving Melchionda to drive in two runs, putting the Huskies up, 3-2.

The Northeastern lead only lasted that half inning, though, as the Eagles scored four runs in the bottom frame to go ahead 6-4, and they never looked back. After three consecutive walks drawn by BC, Melchionda hit a sacrifice fly to center to knock in Mickey Wiswall. Next up was Sudol, and he hit his first round-tripper of the day to make it 6-4.
"Mike Sudol, with the two three-run jacks, was really a big lift for us offensively and gave us the lead back that we had coughed up," Aoki said.

The Eagles added a run in the fifth on a single by John Spatola, which scored classmate Robbie Anston to put BC ahead, 7-4.

Sudol's second home run of the day came in the sixth inning, when the Eagles scored five runs. First, Matt Hamlet scored on a wild pitch, and after Matt Watson was hit by a pitch, Melchionda hit a single through the hole, plating Spatola. Then came Sudol, whose blast landed in nearly the exact same spot over the right field wall as his first. This put the Eagles up by a score of 12-3.

Northeastern would go on to score three runs in the top of the seventh on a three-run home run off Kyle Prohovich, but the BC bullpen held the Huskies' bats silent for the rest of the game.

On the mound for the Eagles, Lasko had a solid game, allowing only three runs while confusing batters with a nasty curve. Besides Lasko and Prohovich, Aoki was able to give a few guys in the bullpen some action, using Dave Laufer, Kevin Moran, and Chris Kowalski.

"I thought we pitched it fairly well," Aoki said. "When they had some little rallies coming back, I think we did a good job of making the pitches that we needed to."

In the later innings, Aoki also made substitutions in the field to get bench players game-ready. BC's skipper said it was definitely good to get guys off the bench and out of the bullpen.

"Some of those guys have needed to get in there and get some at-bats," he said. "I think at some point or another we're gonna need guys like Robby Moir and Matt McGovern and those guys, get them some at-bats. We're certainly gonna need to go into our bullpen a little deeper than we have as we go down the stretch."

Laufer picked up his second win of the season for the Eagles, while Chris Carmain was the losing pitcher for the Huskies.

Every member of the BC starting lineup scored a run in the win except for Smith, who still helped out by knocking in two runs. Sudol was the offensive star of the day, going 2-for-4 with six RBIs, while Zapenas also went 2-for-4 for the Eagles.

Aoki said that for the rest of the season, it's all "playoff baseball."

 "Really at this point for us, it's playoff baseball for us the rest of the way, in order for us to be able to get to the ACC tournament, in order to be able to get to the NCAA tournament, which I think are both very much within our grasp," he said. "But we have very little if any margin for error."