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HARRISONBURG, Va. – A pair of solo home runs out of the leadoff spot by Keith Kelly helped keep the Northeastern baseball team within striking distance of James Madison on Saturday afternoon, despite the Huskies dropping a 6-4 game and the series to the Dukes.
 
Kelly collected his team-leading eighth multi-hit game of the season, sending shots over the right field wall during the third and eighth innings. He became just the second Northeastern player in the last two seasons to hit multiple home runs in the same game, joining Rob Fonseca, who did so twice during the 2015 season.
 
Max Burt carried a hot stick for the Huskies on Saturday, notching three hits and reaching safely during all four of his plate appearances (walk). Burt capitalized on the Dukes' slow fielding in the seventh, converting his ground ball through the left side into a double and later scoring on Cam Walsh's RBI single up the middle. Walsh also doubled during the third and was one of four NU players to crack at least two hits along with Kelly, Burt, and Pat Madigan.
 
Michael Geaslen made his first career start behind the dish for Northeastern (9-11, 0-2 CAA), throwing out Ky Parrott at third for his first ever caught stealing. His fifth-inning single was one of the Huskies' 12 hits, which amounted to four more than James Madison's eight.
 
James Mulry and Will Jahn helped Northeastern save its bullpen arms after Friday's 19-inning marathon. Jahn relieved Mulry in the bottom of the seventh following the Dukes' sixth run, but Jahn struck out the first two batters he faced, keeping the Huskies in reach at 6-3.
 
Chad Carroll and Adam Sisk combined to swing four hits for James Madison (11-12, 2-0 CAA), while Kyle McPherson connected on a two-run home run in the third. NU clubbed seven hits off the Dukes' starter, Colton Harlow, but grounded into four double plays during the second, fourth, fifth, and seventh innings.
 
JMU was content to play small ball against the Huskies, manufacturing runs courtesy of four sacrifice hits. After singling in the first, Carroll was bunted over to second by Parrott before scoring on Brett Johnson's RBI base hit. Sisk went from first to third on consecutive groundouts in the second and stole home on a double steal before the Dukes went up, 3-0, on an RBI single by Michael Sciorra.
 
Two batters after doubling through the left-center field gap, Walsh darted home on a sacrifice fly by Mason Koppens, putting NU on the board for the first time. Kelly proceeded to take one of Harlow's pitches over the wall in right, cutting James Madison's lead to 3-2. However, McPherson's homer in the bottom of the third helped the Dukes regain a three-run lead at 5-2.
 
Northeastern's defense bailed Mulry out of the fifth inning with a 4-6-5-2-6 double play, two innings before Burt's double in the seventh led to the Huskies' third run of the afternoon. JMU answered back immediately with a run in the bottom of the seventh, but Kelly closed the door in the eighth with his second homer of the game. NU managed to put two runners on base in the ninth, but was unable to bring them around to tie the game.
 
Both teams will square off in the series finale on Sunday, March 27, at 12 p.m.