Adam Ottavino's no-hitter on April 7, 2006: Box score | Game recap

BOSTON – On the eve of the Northeastern baseball team's upcoming CAA home series against the Elon Phoenix, April 7, 2016, marks the tenth anniversary of one of the greatest pitching performances in NU program history: Adam Ottavino's no-hitter at Friedman Diamond.
 
Inducted into the Northeastern Varsity Club Hall of Fame in 2015, Ottavino remains the Huskies' all-time strikeout king, fooling hitters 290 times during his three-year career from 2004 to 2006. One of only two NU players to be selected during the first round of the MLB Draft (30th overall), Ottavino has represented the Huskies' well in the big leagues, having made 189 relief appearances with the Colordao Rockies during the past four seasons.
 
On April 7, 2006, Ottavino took the mound for the 12-10 Huskies against a 20-11 James Madison squad that was coming off a 22-run, 19-hit midweek game against Radford. The junior started off with a bang, striking out the Dukes' leadoff hitter, Davis Stoneburner, for the first of what would amount to be a career high, 14 strikeouts, that afternoon.
 
With the comfort of 1-0 lead courtesy of NU shortstop Arman Sidhu's solo shot in the bottom of the first, Ottavino tossed consecutive one-two-three innings during the second and the third. Despite Stoneburner and Kellen Kulbacki reaching on an error and a walk, respectively, in the fourth, Ottavino's no-hit bid had remained intact.
 
Having closed the fifth inning out with back-to-back strikeouts, the Northeastern ace soon upped his streak to three in a row, fanning Rob Altieri to open the top of the sixth. Following an error by Sidhu at short, Ottavino committed his only mistake of the game: an errant pickoff throw at first that scooted the JMU runner up two bases and into scoring position. Needing just one out to preserve the Huskies' 1-0 lead, Ottavino struck out Kulbacki, swinging, retiring the side.
 
Ottavino's sixth-inning trouble appeared to be a tiny blip on the radar of what would go down in the record book as a legendary Northeastern pitching performance. After the Huskies had boosted their lead to 2-0 in the bottom of the sixth, Ottavino went into overdrive, retiring the final nine James Madison batters he faced to complete the ninth no-hitter in Northeastern history. He became just the fifth NU pitcher to keep an opponent hitless through nine innings, earning his first career shutout in the process.
 
Ten years later, Ottavino's no-hitter stands as the most recent a Northeastern pitcher has thrown. Since that Friday afternoon at Friedman Diamond, just three NU hurlers have tossed one-hitters: JT Ross on April 20, 2009 against Rhode Island, Les Williams on March 19, 2010 against Bryant (eight innings), and Kevin Ferguson on April 29, 2012 against Towson.
 
Ottavino signed a three-year contract extension with the Colorado Rockies in December 2015 and is continuing his rehabilitation from Tommy John surgery, which caused him to miss most of the 2015 MLB season.