Box Score  |  Season Stats

MERION STATION, Pa. – Five Wagner hitters produced all 16 hits for the Seahawks on a rain-filled Saturday afternoon in Philadelphia as the Northeastern baseball team lost a 9-3 neutral-site decision during day two of the Big Five Baseball Bash.
 
NU was originally slated to play Saint Joseph's on Saturday, but weather during the morning adjusted the tournament schedule, changing the Huskies' opponent to Wagner. With the victory, Wagner leveled the all-time series with Northeastern at 1-1 after the Huskies had defeated the Seahawks, 10-2, during the 2000 season opener.
 
Right fielder Pat Madigan notched his seventh multi-hit game of the season with a two-for-five outing at the plate. The sophomore from Freeport, New York, pounded out a lead-off base-hit during the top of the second inning and came into score two batters later on an RBI single by Nolan Lang. Madigan led off the fourth inning as well, hitting a solo home run, his second of the year, giving NU a 2-1 advantage.
 
Lang improved his hit streak to four straight games by going three-for-five from the batter's box. The freshman third baseman from Orlando, Florida, has recorded six hits during his last three games and has bumped up his season batting average to a first-year team best .294.
 
Mason Koppens blasted an RBI double in the eighth inning that scored Nick Fanneron, who picked up a hit in his one pinch-hit at-bat of the game. Josh Treff, Can Hanley, and Michael Foster combined for three hits out of the first three spots of the NU batting order.
 
Wagner (1-8-1) read Huskies' starting pitcher Dustin Hunt well during the first four innings of Saturday's contest, racking up 10 hits against the sophomore hurler. Aaron Civale followed Hunt's four-strikeout outing with a three-strikeout performance, but conceded three runs on six hits while walking two.
 
Catcher Nick Dini and first baseman Tommy Mazurkiewicz each tallied four hits apiece while Trey Nicosia and Ben Ruta each netted three. Dini and Ruta both registered two doubles during the game, while Ruta's eighth-inning home run was the right fielder's third extra-base hit of the day.
 
Northeastern (7-8) fell behind early in the bottom half of the first inning after Ruta and Dini smoked back-to-back doubles that put the Seahawks ahead, 1-0. The Huskies answered back quickly with a run in the second off Lang's RBI base-hit, and took a 2-1 lead in the fourth on Madigan's solo home run.
 
A lead-off double by Dini in the bottom of the fourth awarded Wagner a runner in scoring position with no outs, and a sacrifice bunt and wild pitch combination helped Dini score to help the Seahawks tie the game up at 2-2.
 
Wagner extended its lead to 5-2 after unloading four consecutive hits off Hunt in the fifth inning, and a bases-loaded walk to Phil Dickinson thrown by Civale put the Seahawks in front, 6-2.
 
Kept quiet in the sixth and seventh inning, the Huskies rallied in the eighth on three straight hits by Fanneron, Lang, and Koppens, who drove Fanneron in to make it 6-3, Wagner, on his lone double of the game.
 
A single by Nick Mascelli and a double by Nicosia put two runners on base for Ruta in the bottom of the eighth and the right fielder brought them all in to score on a three-run homer. The added insurance helped lift Wagner over Northeastern, 9-3.
 
The Huskies will wrap up their three-game trip to Philadelphia on Sunday, March 15, with a 2 p.m. game against Saint Joseph's. Northeastern's previously scheduled game on Sunday against Villanova has been cancelled.