UConn baseball enters crucial stretch of season
The Huskies' RPI at the end of the year will hinge on a few very important games in the next week.
Weekend Recap
UConn baseball has had a successful past week, with the toughest stretch of the season approaching quickly.
The Huskies took care of business in the first two games of their weekend series against St. John’s: A five-run seventh and two-run ninth vaulted UConn to a comeback win on Thursday, and five runs between the eighth and ninth allowed Jim Penders’ team to take the series win in the first game of the doubleheader on Saturday.
After dropping the final game of the weekend, the Huskies got right back to winning ways, beating CCSU 10-4 at Dunkin’ Park on Monday, then turning around and winning against Bryant 11-3 the next day at Elliot Ballpark.
UConn has been scoring runs in bunches, with 12 multi-run innings over the course of the week. A large part of that is down to the performance of Luke Broadhurst, who extended his hitting streak to 12 games on Tuesday.
The ECSU transfer now sits third on the team in batting average (.357), just a single point behind Jake Studley, and second on the squad in slugging percentage (.622) behind Ben Huber. Studley had a tremendous weekend of his own, going 10-for-22 with four doubles and a home run over the five-game stretch.
RPI Look-Ahead
UConn is up to No. 20 in the RPI and Xavier, the Huskies’ opponent this weekend, is nipping at its heels, sitting at No. 38, as of the start of play on April 12. However, as far as solid weekend opponents to end the year, the Musketeers are the only resume-boosting option. None of the other Big East teams are in the top 100 and St. John’s (No. 121), which has already lost a series to the Huskies, and Creighton (No. 133) are the only others in the top 175.
Through UConn’s first 32 games, it’s played just five sub-200 games, with seven against the top 50 and six more against the back half of the top 100. This includes a pair of Quad 1 sweeps, one at home against Rutgers and another on the road over Florida Atlantic, for a 6-1 record against Quad 1 and 2-4 against Quad 2. The average RPI of the Huskies’ opponents to this point is a more than respectable 118.9, giving them a top-100 strength of schedule rating, according to Warren Nolan.
While the Storrs nine have only suffered three losses to teams outside the top 100, each of which were part of a weekend series, and have a combined 16-3 record against Quads 3 and 4, staying in the left column is going to be even more crucial to keep that RPI figure from inching downward and making the program’s NCAA hopes more precarious.
The team’s next five games will each be Quad 1 and have a solid chance at remaining that way: The upcoming series against Xavier, with a midweek date each against Northeastern and Boston College. After that, UConn will have 20 games remaining. The first 16 of those will be against Quad 4 opponents, nine of which are below 200 in the RPI. The average RPI of these 20 teams plummets to 205.1 and includes four Quad 3 road contests against Rhode Island and Creighton to end the year.
UConn is in position to potentially host a Regional with a hot finish to the regular season and will almost assuredly play locally in the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament, provided Boston College doesn’t slip up in the second half of ACC play. The Eagles are at 8-7 after being swept on the road by Louisville last weekend.
The Huskies are into the back half of the schedule, with 25 games left. Racking up the victories is going to be crucial as we move toward the Big East Tournament on Memorial Day weekend with the feast or famine set-up of UConn’s schedule the rest of the way.