How the Huskies turned a corner in Boca Raton
UConn baseball's season kicked into high gear against Florida Atlantic.
After two weeks of .500 ball, UConn baseball has decided to stop messing around. The Huskies took on one of the hottest teams in college baseball and dominated the weekend, sweeping Florida Atlantic over the course of three games.
The overall run differential won’t look that impressive, but save for a few middle-inning hiccups, UConn never looked in too much trouble. Its pitching and approach at the plate both improved drastically.
“Limit the strikeouts, and good things will happen,” head coach Jim Penders said.
Gone were the bad at-bats, strikeouts and slow innings, replaced with a team that seemed totally in control from the jump. The Huskies scored first in all three games and didn’t trail at any point on the weekend.
Better at-bats was only half of the equation, however. UConn’s pitching staff stepped up in a big way, with a team 1.67 ERA on the weekend and some impressive individual performances.
In Game 2 of the series, Stephen Quigley filled in for an injured Patrick Sullivan and had his best starting performance as a Husky so far, spinning 6 2/3 innings of one-run ball and displaying immense control for the zone. Freshman Tommy Ellisen relieved a struggling Andrew Sears in the final game of the series and performed well in long relief, striking out three and allowing just two hits across 3 2/3 shutout frames.
According to Penders, UConn was able successfully execute a winning strategy to hold the Owls, who were hitting .317 as a team entering the weekend, to just a .202 batting average against.
“I felt like we did a good job of establishing [pitching] ‘in’,” Penders said. “We hadn’t done that in the first two weekends consistently, and I think every pitcher embraced that this weekend and established both sides of the plate.”
Nowhere was that confidence in finding the zone more apparent than on Saturday in the clinching game of the series, when Justin Willis threw 14 straight sliders to strike out the side and earn the save on Saturday afternoon. (Penders: “I don’t think anybody was going to hit those tonight.”)
Even though the Huskies got off to a slow start to the season over the past two weeks, their performance against Florida Atlantic showed that good performances were never far away.
“Even through those first two weekends, as a team our vibes were good,” Ben Huber said. “We were always positive, knowing that if we keep grinding the wins would come and it paid off this weekend.”
Odds and Ends
Dominic Freeberger and Ben Huber continue to lead the way at the top of the UConn lineup, batting .355 and .289 on the year, respectively. Freeberger paces the team in slugging and on-base percentage, and both are tied for the home run lead at two with three other Huskies. Huber’s legs came alive in the series as well, becoming active on the base paths with two stolen bases in two attempts.
Freshman Maddix Dalena made the most of his opportunity at the plate on Sunday in just his second start of the year. The Pennsylvania native went 2-for-3 with a walk, scored a run and made a good impression on Penders.
Even with a new, state-of-the-art turf field, UConn baseball still finds themselves waiting a little bit longer to open the season at home. The Huskies’ home opener against Hartford was postponed due to a combination of cold weather on Tuesday and a short turnaround for their next weekend series, traveling halfway across the Pacific for a road series against Hawaii. The Huskies’ home opener is now scheduled for March 22 against UMass.