LIU Sharks swimming toward Maryland

The perfect season in Lengthy Island College baseball historical past isn’t over but.

Buoyed by the pitching of Nick Torres and the run-producing bat of Carlton Harper, the top-seeded Sharks blanked No. 2 Bryant, 7-0, Sunday in Norwich, Connecticut to seize the Northeast Convention Match title and an automated bid to the NCAA Regionals.

The Sharks, winners of a program-record 37 video games to this point, discovered Monday that they may go to School Park on Friday evening for a first-round showdown towards the College of Maryland, which is ranked fifteenth total within the nation getting into the NCAAs.

“We’re excited to get all the way down to School Park and play towards Maryland and a few actually good competitors,” LIU coach Dan Pirillo mentioned. “With UConn and Wake Forest, it’s going to be a tricky regional. Our guys are going to be up for the problem. We’re excited for the sport forward of us.”

Torres tossed 6 1/3 good frames within the win-or-go dwelling tourney finale.

The senior right-hander yielded 4 hits and a pair of walks with 5 strikeouts earlier than fellow fourth-year hurler and Xaverian Excessive Faculty alum Nick DeSalvo shut the door over the ultimate 2 2/3 innings.

“It’s so cool to come back full circle,” mentioned DeSalvo, a Brooklyn native who additionally participated in LIU’s run to the 2018 NCAA Match.

“It was such a cool expertise to look at that in 2018. We had been within the dugout, screaming our heads off — giving all we’ve obtained till the ultimate moments of that final sport.”

The Sharks dugout wasn’t any much less enthusiastic Sunday, particularly after a 7-2 loss to the Bulldogs within the opener of the championship doubleheader.

Having bested No. 4 Fairleigh Dickinson, 10-2, of their tourney opener on Friday, the Sharks outlasted Bryant, 6-4, in 13 innings earlier than dropping their first sport to the Bulldogs Sunday.

Regardless of the pitching prowess they displayed within the finale, the Sharks nonetheless wanted to attain.

Michael Edelman gave LIU the lead for good with a first-inning two-run double and Harper added an RBI single earlier than knocking in two extra with a base hit within the fifth.

Senior Ryan Neuweiller, one other member of the 2018 NEC Championship squad, doesn’t need his profession as a Shark to finish.

“It was an excellent expertise going there, particularly as a freshman — even with not essentially having the ability to do something on the sector to assist,” Neuweiler mentioned.

“This yr is our final yr in faculty. With the ability to carry out and contribute to us getting to a different regional and serving to this system is simply superior. There’s no higher option to begin your faculty profession after which to finish it.”

If the Sharks get previous the Terps, they may tackle the winner of the UConn-Wake Forest sport on Saturday.

LIU’s first-round encounter can be televised on ESPN-plus at 7 p.m.

It is going to give all the nation, not simply Brooklyn or Brookville, N.Y., the prospect to see the best staff in Sharks historical past.

“They’re grinders. They play so exhausting,” Pirillo mentioned. “They’re by no means out of a sport. They’re by no means out of an at-bat.”

SHARK BITES: In response to the LIU Athletic Division, the Terps and Sharks have met twice beforehand with each video games going to Maryland, by way of a 6-2 triumph in 1991 and a 12-11, 10-inning win in 1992. … Christopher Hund had a pair of homers within the match and Torres earned NEC Match Most Worthwhile Participant honors. “I used to be simply going to go till I couldn’t,” Torres mentioned of his outing within the finale. …. Joshua Loeschorn pitched a whole sport in LIU’s match opener and closed out the underside of the thirteenth towards Bryant within the first of three contests between the rivals.