Boston College Baseball Weekend Recap - Louisville

Though they dropped Friday night’s game 6-1 and Saturday afternoon’s contest 11-3, the Boston College baseball team bounced back in Sunday’s series finale and gutted out a hard fought 2-1 win over Louisville on Senior Day.

It was fitting on the day that honored his class, the lone senior in the weekend rotation, Brian Rapp, threw a gem, lasting seven innings, giving up only a single run, and striking out five. The lineup rewarded Rapp’s tremendous effort by getting to the talented Louisville pitching staff just enough to secure the 2-1 victory. With the score tied at one in the bottom of the eighth, sophomore Brian Dempsey singled home the go-ahead run and reliever Thomas Lane worked a quick ninth inning to give the Eagles the victory. Sophomore Jack Cunningham recorded BC’s other RBI on the afternoon, with a ground out in the bottom of the third.

Some Thoughts:

Today’s win was great. It’s always nice to send the senior class out with a win in their final home game (BC actually plays Maine at home next Tuesday (5/15), but today was the last conference home game) as a sort of thank you for all of their hard work, dedication, and sacrifice over the past four years. However, the weekend also saw the Eagles drop the first two games of the series to Louisville, putting them in a very bad spot heading into their final series against Miami in two weeks (they’re off this coming weekend for exams). Basically, here is how things have shaken out in conference: with an ACC record of 7-20 with three games left to play, the best possible finish Boston College could have would be to sweep Miami and end up 10-20 in conference. That’s not so far-fetched this season, as Miami has played very poorly at times this year and is actually below .500 overall (20-25) for the first time in a long time. However, as you probably already know, to get into the ACC tournament, BC must “jump” two teams ahead of them. As it stands today there are only two teams within striking distance: Virginia and Virginia Tech. Both UVA and VT have two ACC series remaining because they were in exams this past weekend and did not play. Virginia is currently 9-15 in conference and VT is currently 8-16. Boston College owns the tie-break over the Hokies due to their series win earlier in the year, meaning if both teams end the season with 10 wins, BC technically will finish ahead of them. Virginia, however, owns the tie-break over BC, so if they win just one more game in their final six (they play Georgia Tech at home, then Wake Forest on the road), there is no way BC could jump them, even if both end the season with 10 ACC wins. The same can be said of Pittsburgh, who currently has 10 wins (they’re playing their series finale against Notre Dame right now), but even if they were to lose out, and BC were to win out, they still own the tie-break and the Eagles couldn’t jump them. So what does all this mean for Boston College? Well, it means they need to sweep Miami in the season’s final weekend, and hope both Virginia and Virginia Tech lose-out in their final two series. Again, it’s a tough pill to swallow knowing that if Virginia wins just one more game in conference, the Eagles have officially been eliminated, but then again, if BC holds onto the late lead in the rubber match in Charlottesville earlier this season, it’s a completely different story. Regardless, there will definitely be some scoreboard watching this coming weekend for BC’s players, but the likely outcome doesn’t look good for the Eagles. Before any of that goes down, however, Boston College plays their final home game on the season next Tuesday, May 15th when the Maine Black Bears come to town.