The worm has finally turned with Mother Nature.

This past week, the weather was fantastic. Boston enjoyed record highs in temperature for this time of season, and any remnants of the hard winter are nowhere to be found. Our grounds crew has been getting after it, diligently working to have the field ready for the upcoming conference play. Something resembling a baseball diamond is beginning to appear.    

The team took advantage of the weather and had two great workouts at Northeastern University's home field. We covered a lot of defensive areas – fly ball reads, pfp's, ground balls, etc. – and hit for a solid hour each day. The pitchers were thrown a bone and were allowed to finish up practice with six swings apiece. For the most part, there were some ugly hacks in the cage. I think some guys were swinging from the wrong side of the plate. They did absolutely nothing to disprove the old axiom of hurlers being non-athletes.

The BC road show continued with two mid-week day trips to Holy Cross and Central Connecticut State We tallied 8-4 and 9-3 victories, respectively, to get above .500.    

Because of our current home field situation, we hosted the University of Hartford at Campanelli Stadium, the home of an independent league team located 40 minutes south of campus – the Brockton Rox – on Saturday. Brockton, Mass., is the city made famous by homegrown boxing legends Rocky Marciano and Marvelous Marvin Hagler as well as BC head coach Pete Hughes. Coach Hughes had to leave 5,000 tickets at the gate for all his homeboys and family members for this doubleheader.

The first game of the day was played under heavy skies. The gray angels had the Copenhagen going, spitting on us throughout the entire game. We played well in the slop and put up some big numbers, scoring in every inning and winning 16-2. The great offensive showing allowed all the position players to have a chance at the plate.

The second game of the set was just the opposite of the first. The skies cleared and the bats went numb, with pitching and defense taking the upper hand for both sides.

One funny note. In the top of the fifth, our third baseman made a tremendous diving stab, fired a seed across to first for the out and came running off the field all fired up. "Hey Marco, get back out there. That's only two outs. We're playing three today." The guys let him have it. We made a few adjustments late in the game, managed to come up with a few key hits and played hard through a 3-2 win.

Having set up a tough early schedule is starting to pay off. The team is playing much more relaxed. We're starting to put teams away and pull out the tight ones. And that two-out RBI has jumped into the bat rack.

Four straight wins against Northeast teams not only help us roll into conference play but also give us a huge jump in attaining one of our goals: becoming the No. 1 team in New England.

Steve Englert

(photo courtesy of BC Media Relations Office)