 "Photo: Nando Trindade")
Combined, they're about the size of a power forward. Combined, they spent exactly zero time playing any sort of organized baseball this summer.
Combined, Boston University pitchers Jon Koonin and Quinn Duffy no-hit Fairfield University Saturday at Harbor Yard stadium in Bridgeport, Conn., as the Terrier club baseball team opened its season with a two-game series sweep. The Terriers combined to dominate the Stags, 19-2 in Saturday's doubleheader.
Koonin pitched five innings of no-hit ball in the first game for BU (2-0), striking out five while walking three in the 7-2 win. He left the game after the fifth inning due to pitch count, however, with the team unwilling to overextend him in his first start of the season.
"It was a very tough decision that I wasn't happy we had to make," said senior captain Nando Trindade. "You don't usually have too many chances to throw a no-hitter, but we need him for the rest of the season too."
Duffy tacked on two more hitless innings for the Terriers, chalking up four strikeouts and a walk.
By winning its first two games of the season, the team finds itself in uncharted territory. Even in a 2004 season that saw BU go 12-2 and win the New England Club Baseball Association Championship, the team split its season-opening series with the University of New England.
And it's also a new year for NECBA, which recently added Emerson College, The College of the Holy Cross and Fairfield to its team lineup. So, in short, 2004 means very little in 2005, Trindade said.
"It was very important to show the league that we're still at the talent level we were at last year," Trindade said. "All our pitchers threw well, and our bats came alive in the second game."
BU jumped out to an early lead in the first inning of the opening contest, when right fielder Mike Carozza scored on a defensive lapse by the Fairfield second baseman. The Terriers tacked on two more runs in the third and another in the fourth, putting the game away in the sixth with consecutive extra-base hits by first baseman Todd Katz and catcher Kevin Scheitrum, who is the sports editor for The Daily Free Press.
The Terriers again struck early in the second game, as Trindade scored the first of his four runs in the second inning, coming home on a Craig O'Connell RBI double.
Trindade reached on an error in the next inning and came around to score, as BU sent nine men to the plate in the third. The captain walked and scored in the fourth, and once again reached on a defensive miscue and scored in the sixth.
Katz finished the game with three RBI, while O'Connell and catcher Mike Walker tallied two apiece.
Brandon Simes started, allowing two runs in the first and cutting off any Stag offense after that. Hurlers Jeff Border and Mike Conway shined for the Terriers, combining to strike out eight in three solid innings of relief.
The Terriers will be in action again this Saturday at noon, playing a two-game set against Emerson.
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