1921-1940  |  1941-1960  |  1961-1980  |  1981-2000  |  2001-2015

As the Northeastern baseball team prepares for its 95th all-time season this coming spring, take a stroll back through time and join the Huskies as the program reflects on 95 years of history on the baseball diamond. During the week of Jan. 12, "Ninety-five years of Northeastern baseball" will highlight a 20-year period of NU baseball history, beginning Monday with its inaugural season in 1921, and ending Friday with the upcoming 2015 campaign.

BOSTON – Already the longest tenured Northeastern baseball head coach in program history, John Connelly took the field for his final season with the Huskies in 1981, following more than 30 years of service as both a student-athlete and mentor. Connelly had brought NU its first Greater Boston College Baseball League (GBCBL) title, and managed the Huskies during their memorable run in 1966 to the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska. During the 1960s and 1970s, Connelly had orchestrated a baseball renaissance at Northeastern, and despite his departure following the 1981 campaign, the program was eager to continue his winning legacy throughout the rest of the decade.
 
Inheriting a team that had posted a 10-19 record the previous year, new head coach Charlie O'Malley won just eight games in his first year, but managed to double the Huskies' win total to 16 in 1983. With heavy-hitting sluggers like William O'Leary (1981-84) and Paul DiPillo (1983-86), O'Malley turned Northeastern into an offensive machine. In its first two games of the season, NU defeated St. Lawrence, 15-7, and Gustavus Adolphus, 19-2, before completing a 20-0 shutout against Brooklyn Poly-Tech four games later.
 
Northeastern's high-octane offense carried over into the 1984 season as the Huskies won each of their first eight games to start the year a perfect 8-0. NU averaged 5.5 runs per game during 1984, and put double-digit run totals up on the scoreboard five different times. In just three years, O'Malley had set a new single-season record for wins after a 20-20 season.
 
By 1985, the Huskies had committed to playing a full ECAC schedule along with their slate of GBCBL games. Schools like Siena, Maine, and Vermont became frequent opponents for Northeastern intermixed among familiar local rivals like Harvard, Boston College, and Boston Unviersity. NU finished the 1985 campaign with a 14-19 overall record and a 3-8 mark in the ECAC North division, but notched a 6-3 record against GBCBL competition.
 
When off the field tensions escalated between Northeastern athletic director Irwin Cohen and O'Malley, Cohen elected to replace the manager with former Huskies alum Neil McPhee (class of 1968, HOF inductee 1980) in 1986. McPhee wasted no time getting reacquainted with his former baseball program, and in his first season as head coach, guided NU to a program-record 25 wins. During a late-season stretch under McPhee, the Huskies won 17 out of 20 games, including back-to-back 18-0 shutouts against crosstown foe Boston University.
 
Talented pitchers like Joe Killilia (1984-1987) and Michael Maguire (1988-1991) were go-to hurlers in McPhee's rotations during the late 1980s. Killilia led the Huskies in strikeouts in 1984 and 1985, and had a team-low 3.97 ERA during his senior season in 1987. He also threw the Huskies' fourth no-hitter on May 3, 1985, in a 12-0 win against MIT. Maguire held the team high in strikeouts during each of his four years on Huntington Avenue, and left Northeastern as the school's record holder in career strikeouts (212).
 
After setting a new record for wins in 1990 (26), the Huskies in 1991 were primed for one of their greatest seasons in program history. Following a slow 3-6 start, McPhee and team captains Jim Caeran, Pete Charpentier (1988-91), and Tim Scannell (1988-91) compiled a 20-game winning streak, sweeping multi-game series against Harvard, New Hampshire, Hartford, and Boston University. Northeastern would finish their first season in the North Atlantic (today the America East) conference with an impressive 35-15 record, including four wins in the 1991 ECAC postseason tournament.
 
Although the Huskies had left the GBCBL for the perks of the North Atlantic conference, NU still squared off against its local rivals in the annual Beanpot tournament, held for the first time in 1990. Northeastern advanced to the Beanpot final for the first year in 1992, but lost to Boston College, 3-1, in the title round. Knocked out by the Eagles again in the 1993 semifinals, the Huskies were determined to make a Beanpot breakthrough by the time the 1994 tournament rolled around.
 
Sure enough, Northeastern entered the 1994 Beanpot semifinals against Harvard winners of five straight games and 18 out of its last 20. Power hitters such as Derek Gauthier (class of 1996, HOF inductee 2004) and future head coach Mike Glavine (class of 1996, HOF inductee 2006) gave the Huskies an incredible offensive advantage. Gauthier, the 1994 North Atlantic Player of the Year, led NU that season with a .326 batting average, 15 home runs, and 54 RBIs. A big-swinging left-handed slugger, Glavine belted 12 home runs and smacked 21 extra-base hits en route to receiving North Atlantic All-Star and eventual All-Tournament honors. After topping the Crimson, 4-1, in the semifinals, NU won its first Beanpot title courtesy of a 10-3 win against Boston University at Fenway Park.
 
As impressive as it was to claim the program's first Beanpot, the Huskies were not finished raking in the hardware in 1994. Northeastern raced through the North Atlantic tournament and secured a spot in the NCAA tournament with a 5-0 shutout victory against Hartford. NU would advance to play both Tennessee and North Carolina State, but the Huskies would drop a pair of three-run decisions to both squads.
 
Led by team captains Gauthier and Glavine, Northeastern defended its 1994 Beanpot title in 1995, defeating Boston College, 7-3, to win its second straight Boston championship. Following the season, Glavine and teammate Jay O'Shaughnessy (1994-95) were both selected in the 1995 MLB Draft. Glavine, who was drafted in 1994 by the Houston Astros, was picked in the 22nd round by the Cleveland Indians, while O'Shaughnessy was selected in the 18th round by the Los Angeles Dodgers.
 
While Glavine was starting his professional baseball career in the late 1990s, future major-leaguer Carlos Pena (1997-98) helped the Huskies reclaim the America East crown in 1997 with a 33-19 overall record. Northeastern went undefeated in the conference tournament, and ousted Bethune-Cookman, 2-0, in a best-of-three play-in series to advance to the NCAA tournament for the second time in four years. Three years after John Forneiro (1993-96) had pitched two no-hitters in 1996, Greg Montalbano (class of 2000, HOF inductee 2005) threw a seven-inning no-hitter against Niagara on March 20, 1999, leading the Huskies into the new millennium with four straight winning seasons.


1981-2000 STATISTICS

Largest win: 20-0 vs. Brooklyn Poly-Tech (1983); 20-0 vs. Niagara (1999)
Largest defeat: 1-23 vs. Massachusetts (1983)
Most combined runs in a game: 35 (W, 20-15 vs. Harvard, 1987)
Record during the 1980s: 226-175-3 (.563)
Record during the 1990s: 269-193-1 (.582)
Highest single-season winning percentage: .700 (35-15, 1991)
Lowest single-season winning percentage: .327 (8-17-1, 1982)
Longest single-season winning streak: 20 (1991)
Longest overall winning streak: 20 (1991)