To quote Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Lemon: “I’ve come to the conclusion that the two most important things in life are good friends and a good bullpen.”
Unfortunately, the bullpen of the defending New England Club Baseball Association champion Boston University club team could not hold up in the Terriers’ 8-4 semifinal loss on Sunday.
The Terriers, who finished 9-2 in the regular season and won the NECBA regular-season title for the second straight year, drew the College of the Holy Cross in the first round. BU finished 2-2 against the Crusaders on the year.
Holy Cross jumped out to an early 4-0 lead thanks in large part to miscues by the Terrier defense.
“All four of those runs should be considered gifts,” said senior captain Nando Trindade. “We just made mental mistakes.”
Dreams of a championship repeat looked bleak until the Terriers clawed their way back in the bottom of the eighth inning. Senior Todd Katz, junior Aaron Sarracino and sophomore Mike Walker came through with clutch hits, and before the Crusaders could blink, the game was tied at 4-4.
“We showed a lot of character in the way we came back, the bottom of the lineup really stepped up for us,” said starting pitcher Brandon Simes.
After Simes was taken out of the game in the eighth, the wheels flew off for the Terriers. A leadoff homerun and back-to-back walks opened the floodgates to a four-run ninth by Holy Cross.
“We’ve played better,” said sophomore Mike Carozza. “We gave them a couple more outs than they should have had and those cost us, but we put ourselves in position to win and lost it in the last inning and it wasn’t on mistakes – they just beat us.”
Despite the late surge by the Crusaders, the Terriers feel they should have won the game, hands down.
“We left too many guys on base like we have all year,” Carozza said. “We couldn’t get the big hit until the eighth when we tied it, but other than that we couldn’t get anybody in.”
Beyond the men left on base, beyond the mental errors, BU had an extremely bright spot in Simes.
“Simes pitched lights-out,” said senior Jon Koonin. “He really pitched a hell of a game.”
Everyone agreed – except for Simes, that is.
“I pitched well, but four runs is still four runs no matter how the team played,” he said.
Opinions also differed on the success of the season.
“At the risk of sounding arrogant,” Carozza said, “I and the entire team expect to win every game. I wouldn’t say this season was a failure, but without a championship it’s not a success by any stretch.”
“I think it was a successful season,” Trindade said. “We played well all year with a target on our back, unfortunately we just weren’t able to keep it there.”
Even without a championship this year, the Terriers’ success over the past two seasons has them dreaming of bigger and better competition, as they may consider making the jump to the National Club Baseball Association next season.
“We were 21-5 in the NECBA over the past two seasons,” Trindade said. “I think it’d be exciting if we could compete at a higher level.”
Whether or not the Terriers make the jump to the NCBA is left for future teams and coaches to decide, but as for the current Terriers, no one could have done a better job of summing up the season than Simes. “I expected us to win the championship,” he said, “but I like the group of guys we had. I’d rather lose with them than win with anyone else.”
At the very least, they’ve got the first part of the Lemon quote covered.
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