The Boston College baseball team must have read that a few BC Interruption readers were considering replacing varsity baseball with men's lacrosse. Picked by the coaches to finish last in the ACC this season, Bird Ball is off to a surprising 3-0 start, including wins over No. 17 Virginia (5-3), James Madison 8-5 and host Coastal Carolina 8-3 to win the Caravelle Resort Tournament.
In both Saturday's games against JMU and Coastal Carolina, the Eagles jumped out to 8-0 leads by the end of the fourth and never looked back. BC's three wins in this year's Caravelle Resort Tournament were all against teams that made last year's NCAA Tournament field.
The Eagles start the season 3-0 for the first time since 2009. That year, BC went 6-0 before recording their first loss of the season.
BC's center fielder Tom Bourdon went 8-for-14 (.571) on the weekend and shortstop Anthony Melchionda was 6-for-14 (.429) with six RBIs. Senior 1B Spenser Payne tallied four RBIs on the weekend as well. The Eagles were highly efficient, scoring 21 runs on 30 hits. All but one of those runs came after the fourth inning.
The Eagles got weekend victories from Eric Stevens, Matt Alvarez and Hunter Gordon. Here are the pitching lines from BC's three victories:
-- Eric Stevens (1-0) - 6.0 IP, 7 hits, 3 runs, 3 earned, 1 strikeout, 1 walk, 23 at bat, 28 batters faced
-- Matt Alvarez (1-0) - 5.2 IP, 1 hit, 3 runs, 1 earned, 2 strikeouts, 6 walks, 16 at bat, 23 batters faced
-- Hunter Gordon (1-0) - 5.0 IP, 3 hits, 0 runs, 0 earned, 6 strikeouts, 1 walk, 19 at bat, 20 batters faced
Next up, the Eagles travel to Orlando on Friday, February 24 for a three-game series with UCF. Hopefully BC's trip to Orlando goes better than the school's last trip to the Magic Kingdom.
Go Eagles!