Watch the 2012 Season Recap Video

Northeastern baseball (23-28, 13-17 CAA) started 8-4 and won five of its last seven games, but a midseason slide dropped the Huskies just shy of the final CAA Tournament slot.

Despite going under .500, the year was hardly without individual accolades, with three Huskies earning All-CAA honors. Junior Jon Leroux garnered First Team All-Conference, sophomore Aaron Barbosa Second Team, and freshman Jason Vosler Third Team. Vosler also captured Northeastern's second consecutive CAA Rookie of the Year award, after Barbosa won the prize as a freshman in 2011.

Vosler was only one name amongst a host of freshmen to star for the red and black in their debut seasons. Rob Fonseca started 45 games for the Huskies and was ever-present in the middle of the lineup, slugging an even .500 with eight homers and a .289 average. Nick Berger did not allow a hit until his fifth appearance, in a streak spanning 6.1 innings; he went on to win four games as a starter. Michael Foster got it done both on the mound and at the plate – before missing the second half of the season due to injury, he had posted a .296 average with six extra base hits in 14 starts, and a 3.24 ERA in seven appearances. At one point Northeastern got production from four freshmen around the infield, between Fonseca, Foster, Vosler and third baseman Alex McKeon.

After dropping a pair of close games to Jacksonville to start the season, Northeastern tasted victory for the first time on Feb. 25, trouncing the Dolphins, 8-1, behind eight strong innings from junior Kevin Ferguson. Junior catcher John Puttress went 3-for-4, and senior tri-captain Tucker Roeder drove in three runs in a 2-for-5 effort.

The win kicked off a five-game winning streak extending through the first week of March, thanks largely to the stellar play of sophomore shortstop Oliver Hart. In helping sweep a doubleheader on March 4 against Bowling Green, Hart went a combined 5-for-6 with a double and a triple; he followed that up two more hits apiece in wins over St. Bonaventure and Georgetown. The Guilford, Conn., native hit .875 for the week and captured CAA Player of the Week honors.

The Huskies rounded out their annual Florida trip with a 3-2 loss to Penn, but soon found themselves starting CAA play on the right foot. On Friday, March 9, senior tri-captain Andrew Leenhouts took the ball in NU's conference debut and promptly delivered a four-hit, one-walk shutout of William & Mary. With ten strikeouts on the day, Leenhouts was named CAA Pitcher of the Week.

The Huskies also plated ten runs and pounded out 12 hits that afternoon, including four from Barbosa and Vosler's first career home run. Northeastern would go on to split a pair of 4-3 affairs with W&M, with Ferguson yielding just one earned run in Sunday's tilt to nail down his second win of the year.

A 4-3 victory over Brown in Northeastern's home opener moved the team to 8-4 on the season, but adversity would soon strike in the form of two crushing losses at Georgia State. Up 12-2 in the ninth on March 16, thanks in part to two homers from Vosler and one from freshman Rob Fonseca, the Huskies yielded 11 runs in the final frame to lose 13-12. The following afternoon, Fonseca went deep again and freshman Alex McKeon added his first career home run, but GSU plated two apiece in the seventh and eighth to secure an 8-7 comeback victory. The Huskies trounced the Panthers on Sunday, 13-4, but the series was the beginning of a slide of eight losses in nine CAA contests.

Leroux's first two homers of the year could not bring Northeastern victory in midweek, a 4-3 loss to Central Connecticut State on March 20, but the Huskies got healthy on a non-conference sweep at Richmond. NU outscored the Spiders over the two-game set, 23-10, with Vosler and Fonseca again going yard together in game one on March 23. In game two on March 25, Ferguson scattered seven hits over seven shutout innings with eight K's to pick up his fourth win and CAA Co-Pitcher of the Week laurels.

The following Tuesday, March 27, Northeastern authored a miracle of its own. Down 11-7 in the ninth at home against Boston College, eight of nine Huskies reached base to tie the game; then, with Foster (2-for-5 with a triple on the day) at the plate, Kyle Prohovich's delivery went all the way to the backstop, scoring Puttress to seal a 12-11 walk-off victory. It was the second consecutive year in which Northeastern had beaten the Eagles at Parsons Field via walk-off wild pitch.

The win brought Northeastern's record to 12-7, but it would precede an eight-game losing streak that sent the Huskies winning percentage under .500 for good. After a 7-1 loss at Rhode Island, NU once again went south and suffered a sweep at the hands of 2011 CAA champions James Madison. On April 6, JMU overcame Leroux's third bomb of the year with a 14-6 victory; Ferguson kept things close the following afternoon in a 3-2 loss, but the Dukes touched up freshman Nick Berger and junior Dylan Maki in a 16-7 rout.

April 10 brought the Beanpot semifinal against UMass, and despite a strong effort from sophomore righthander Matt Cook, the Huskies dropped a 4-1 decision, scratching out just four hits. The slide abated momentarily with wins over Harvard and George Mason – with Barbosa going yard in the former and Leenhouts dominating in the latter – but Northeastern could take only the first game of the GMU series, dropping the final two games by a combined 14-6.

The season hit its nadir April 17-22 with four consecutive losses to round out the six-game losing streak. On the 17th, Husky pitching walked 14 Bulldogs and hit four more en route to a 13-5 loss. It was the wrong way to enter a weekend series with eventual CAA champions UNCW, and the Seahawks held the Huskies to just seven runs on the weekend. Hart and Vosler did homer for Northeastern.

Needing critical CAA wins to salvage its season, NU got just what it needed with a weekend sweep of Towson. In game one of a doubleheader on April 28, Leenhouts fought through 8.2 innings on 126 pitches, but left the game with the Huskies behind, 4-3.  Northeastern had two outs and nobody on in the bottom of the ninth, but the Huskies loaded the bases and scored the tying run on a wild pitch. Barbosa then beat out an infield single to score sophomore Connor Lyons and deliver a dramatic 5-4 victory.

NU dominated the Tigers in game two behind sterling pitching from Berger and Maki, setting the stage for a pivotal game three that would see one of the finest pitching performances anywhere in the nation. Ferguson got the start and, in virtually a must-win situation, allowed only one baserunner in a dominant, 93-pitch complete game shutout. He struck out nine Towson hitters and faced the minimum 27 batters – the lone Tiger with a hit, Kurt Wertz, was promptly picked off at first base by Leroux. That play occurred with one out in the second, and Ferguson went on to retire the final 23 hitters in order to lock down a 2-0 win. His second CAA Pitcher of the Week Award of the season was a formality, but for his efforts the Suffern, N.Y., native also took National Pitcher of the Week honors.

The momentum ebbed slightly in midweek, with losses to BC and UMass on May 1 and 2, respectively, but Northeastern continued its surge against Hofstra, the CAA Tournament's second seed. Once again the Huskies conjured some late-inning magic, plating four in the ninth to lock down a 7-5 win. After Leroux homered to lead off the inning, junior Jason Roth's walk and Roeder's hit by pitch set the table for three straight hits from Barbosa, Puttress and senior tri-captain Matt Miller, which drove home the tying and go-ahead runs. Maki earned his third save in support of yet another gutsy effort from Leenhouts.

The rest of the weekend unfortunately put another dent in the Huskies' playoff aspirations. Six NU errors yielded five unearned runs in a 10-2 drubbing on May 5, and 19 Hofstra hits the following afternoon overcame another multi-homer game from Leroux, as the Pride cruised to a 15-9 win. Lyons also added his first career home run in the loss.

A tough, 8-7 loss to UConn followed on May 8, but the developing subplot of the season's home stretch was beginning to take shape. With yet another home run in the game, Leroux had already raised his season total to eight, just six games after entering the month of May with three. He went 2-for-4 on the day, continuing what would become an 11-game hitting streak to end the season.

Again, the Huskies essentially found themselves in a must-win scenario, needing as many wins as possible to make a late run at the CAA Tournament. And once again, as with the Towson series in late April, NU got just what it needed, sweeping Old Dominion in style. The Huskies jumped on the Monarchs early, with 18 hits in a 13-3 pounding on Friday, May 11. Seven strong innings from Nick Berger followed on Saturday, lifting NU to a 6-4 win.

Leroux's bat, meanwhile, only got hotter during the series. After five hits over the first two games, the Auburn, Mass., native supplied all the offense Northeastern would need on Sunday, launching two more home runs in a 14-1 rout that improbably left NU just one game out of a CAA playoff spot.

A ten-inning, 8-3 loss to Rhode Island in the May 14 home finale was nearly immaterial at that point in the season, with all the focus on the final three CAA games, at Delaware. At the beginning of the weekend, Northeastern trailed Towson and Georgia State by a game and was tied with William & Mary, with all four teams fighting for the final CAA Tournament spot. On Friday, May 18, the Huskies got the job done, and they did it through their workhorse Leenhouts. The Franklin, Mass., native scattered nine hits with two walks over his complete game, holding Delaware to just two runs. He also struck out eight in what would be his final collegiate start, ending his great career second all-time behind Adam Ottavino in career strikeouts, with 282. Fonseca crushed his eighth home run of the year as NU cruised to an all-important 6-2 win.

Saturday's game, however, would bring no such luck, and combined with the other scores around the league it would remove Northeastern from playoff contention. Leroux smacked yet another bomb, his 12th and final of the year, but the Blue Hens roughed up Ferguson and ended the Huskies' hope of a Cinderella run with a 10-3 win. Northeastern did end the season on a bright note, however, toppling Delaware, 12-9, on May 20.

While Leenhouts ended his career on the cusp of history, two Huskies put their names at the top of the record books for years to come. On the season's final day, Barbosa collected three hits to total 76 on the season, beating Mike Tamsin's record of 74, set in 2009. Miller also played in his 199th career game that day, setting a new standard after Tamsin had appeared in 197 from 2006-09.

Northeastern will be without stalwarts Leenhouts and Miller in 2013, along with Sam Berg and Greg Ferguson, two of Neil McPhee's more reliable bullpen arms, and the invaluable bench play of Roeder, the nominal catcher who came on in the middle of the season as an excellent defensive first baseman. But with two straight CAA Rookies of the Year, the production already seen from the 2012 freshman class, and the 2013 group that has yet to matriculate, the future appears all the brighter for McPhee's squad.