The Northeastern University Huskies marched into University Field on Friday, April 9 and snapped the Hofstra baseball team’s brief winning streak by thumping the Pride 8-2 in the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) opener.
Freshman pitcher Steven Kaenzig took the mound for Hofstra in place of the unavailable Jack Jett for his first ever collegiate start. However, the Hammonton, New Jersey native struggled, surrendering four earned runs over three innings.
The Pride certainly missed Jett, the CAA’s ERA leader, on the mound against the first place Huskies, but head coach John Russo still saw some good things out of the young right-hander Kaenzig against some tough competition.
“To find out yesterday afternoon that [Kaenzig] would be getting the Friday night start in the first game of conference, only having 2 1/3 innings under his belt, and to have that adrenaline rush to be able to get out of the first [inning], I thought he did really well,” Russo said.
“He gave us a good second and then got into some trouble in the third inning, but I liked how he held runners, I liked that he was able to throw offspeed behind in the count. [Kaenzig] is gonna be really good and he did some good things out there today,” Russo said.
On the other side, Northeastern ace Cam Schlittler made very few mistakes on the day, allowing only two runs while striking out 11 batters. After briefly giving up a 1-0 Hofstra lead on Will Kennedy’s RBI double, Schlittler settled in and retired the next seven batters before giving up his second run.
After Kennedy’s solo home run in the fourth and second RBI of the day, Schlittler was near perfect.
“Northeastern was what I thought they were going to be. They were tough at the plate, they played really good defense and they got great starting pitching,” Russo said. “I took away that we swung decently on the fastball, but their guy was throwing as good as we’ve seen this year.”
Despite Kennedy’s big day at the plate, the rest of the offense failed to connect with Schlittler, who lowered his team-leading ERA to 2.10.
The game remained close until the sixth inning when Northeastern turned a 4-2 lead into an 8-2 lead with runs from Ben Malgeri, Jared Dupere and Jeff Costello.
Following the sixth, Hofstra’s bullpen shut down the Huskies for the final three innings. However, Hofstra’s bats still could not break through and take advantage of the strong relief outing from freshman Michael O’Hanlon.
In his first ever appearance for the Pride, O’Hanlon fired three shutout innings, allowing only two hits and striking out two batters.
“For him to go out and execute against a team like Northeastern on less than 24 hours’ notice, I thought was borderline incredible,” Russo said. “I couldn’t have been more impressed by him and more importantly, I’m super happy for him.”
Hofstra (9-7) and Northeastern (11-5) will continue their four-game series on Saturday, April 10, with a double-header beginning at 11 a.m.
Photo Courtesy of Hofstra Athletics
