The scorching hot Huskies on Huntington Ave. were too much for the Storrs nine.
Ian Cooke was great in relief, pitching 5 1⁄3 innings and allowing just two runs, but UConn baseball couldn’t snap Northeastern’s 20-game winning streak in a 7-1 decision at Elliot Ballpark on Tuesday. For as hot as UConn has been, with a 20-2 record since dropping a series to Creighton the first weekend in April, Northeastern has been even better, with 30 wins in 31 tries after Tuesday’s victory.
Northeastern has one of the best pitching staffs in the country, with a team ERA below 3.00, the only team to own such a mark, while the opposition owns a slash line of .212/.285/.296. UConn was hardly the first team to struggle against a strong group of arms, managing just six hits, one of which went for extra bases.
The home team went down in order just three times, but only two runners reached third base. Tyler Minick did so via a triple and scored UConn’s only run in the fourth, while Rob Rispoli, who beat out the back end of the double play to reach on a fielder’s choice, arrived there in the eighth with the help of a passed ball, though he was unable to score.
Caleb Shpur, who registered two singles as the only member of the multi-hit club, stole second base after each of his knocks to reach 41 thefts on the season and set the program’s single-season record, beating out Dennis Dwyer’s 1993 season.
Jude Abbadessa got the start and he worked around trouble in the first, walking two hitters, but he stranded them both. He was not as lucky in the second, as Matt Brinker led off the inning with a single. Abbadessa got to a full count on each of the next two hitters, striking out Alex Lane, but Gregory Bozzo worked the walk. Both Briner and Bozzo came around to score on a two-run double by Chris Walsh to open the scoring.
That spelled the end for UConn’s starter after 1 1⁄3 innings and Sam Hutchinson entered to play the matchup against the left-handed hitter. He got the second out of the frame and handed it off to Cooke, who got the strikeout to strand Walsh at third.
Aside from getting Rispoli to third with one out in the eighth, Shpur’s record-breaking stolen base in the sixth, which came with two outs, was the only runner UConn got into scoring position following Minick’s triple in the fourth.
Cooke departed for the eighth, which was handled by Sean Finn, who worked around a base hit, but Northeastern put it out of reach with a three-run ninth. Grant MacArthur tried to start a two-out rally in the ninth, singling up the middle on a full count, but Beau Root, who was pinch-hitting, went down on strikes to end the contest.
UConn (33-19) finishes the regular season with a home series against Maine. First pitch on Thursday is at 6:05 p.m. on UConn+.