BOX SCORE (PDF) | POSTGAME NOTES | CAA CHAMPIONSHIP CENTRAL
WILMINGTON, N.C. -
Jared Dupere went 2-for-4 with his 19th home run of the season, and
Spenser Smith drove in two runs to lead No. 1 seed Northeastern (33-10) in an 8-4 defeat to No. 2 seed UNCW (32-20) on Friday in the winner's bracket of the CAA Baseball Championship at Brooks Field on the campus of UNCW. The Huskies fell behind 6-1 after two innings and could not come back as the Seahawks outhit NU, 12-8.
Danny Crossen earned three walks in the game, including one with the bases loaded, while
Max Viera finished 2-for-5 to reach base in 29-of-30 games this season. Dupere's 19 home runs is just one shy of matching the single-season school record held by Frank Pesanello (2008).
Right-handed pitcher
Rick Burroni tossed 2.0 scoreless innings for the Huskies in the eighth and ninth frames, while RHP
Owen Langan and
Thomas Balboni also threw a scoreless inning for Northeastern. RHP
Kyle Murphy (6-1) suffered his first loss of the season, working 2.0 innings, allowing seven hits, six runs and struck out five.
After UNCW scored two runs on the top of the first inning, Dupere homered to left field in the bottom half of the first to slice the lead in half. The Seahawks responded with four more runs in the second inning on a grand slam with two outs by Cole Weiss. NU rallied to load the bases in the sixth and seventh innings, but were only able to push three runs across courtesy of a two-RBI single by Smith in the sixth and a bases loaded walk by Crossen in the seventh.
The top-seeded Huskies will take on the No. 4 seed Charleston (27-24) in an elimination game on Saturday at 1 p.m. The winner will advance to the CAA Championship Game at 5 p.m. to face UNCW. All games are streamed on
FloBaseball and can be heard on
WRBB 104.9 FM.
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