Bridgewater State Faces Top-Seeded Tufts in NCAA Baseball Tourney

By Jim Fenton, The Enterprise (Brockton)

BRIDGEWATER, Mass. -- The Bridgewater State University baseball team last played an NCAA Div. 3 tournament game on May 23, 2004.

The Bears made it to the final round of the New England Regional before losing to host Eastern Connecticut State University to finish 3-2 in the tourney.

After a six-year absence, BSU has made it back to the NCAAs as the No. 8 seed in the New England Regional, which takes place this week at Whitehouse Field in Harwich.

The Bears (23-15) will open against top-seeded Tufts University (26-7-1) at 1 p.m. on Wednesday, one of four games on the first day of the double-elimination tourney that will end either Saturday or Sunday.

With a starting lineup that is loaded with underclassmen, BSU rebounded from a 10-11 start to win 13 of its last 17 games and enters the NCAAs with a 7-1 record in the past eight games.

Coach Rick Smith has just seven seniors, including four pitchers, on the roster and the late-season surge has been fueled by juniors and sophomores.

The Bears won the Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference tournament to gain the automatic berth and are making the program’s 13th appearances in the NCAAs..

“This is a young team, so this is a stepping stone,” said Smith. “This experience is going to pay huge dividends. We’ve got three sophomores on the All-MASCAC teams and four juniors, so these guys are going to be with each other for the next two or three years.

“We’ve got a connection with Massasoit (Community College), which has opened up recruiting and I think they’re going to do very well over the next two or three years if they all stay together.”

Massasoit transfers Corey Batista, who will face Tufts, and Dave Billotte have led the pitching staff with 1.33 and 1.64 earned run averages, respectively. Batista is 6-2 and has 72 strikeouts in 61 innings while Billotte, who will pitch on Thursday, is 2-3 in seven appearances.

“When Batista and Billotte took control and put us in good positions to win because they were just dominant on the mound, that turned it around,” said Smith. “And the bats came alive, too.”

Another Massasoit transfer, junior Joshua Ferreira, is hitting a team-leading .373 with five homers and 21 RBI.

Also batting above the .300 mark are Keane Costa (.357), Tyler Dennis of Stoughton (.352 with 13 doubles), Ian Williams of Taunton (.343 with a team-best 39 RBI) and Billotte (.315).

The Bears went 5-2 in Vero Beach, Fla., in March, then struggled with consistency when they first got back to Massachusetts, dropping nine of their first 14 games after the trip.

BSU got things going following a mid-April loss to nationally ranked Eastern Connecticut State University and had winning streaks of six and four games down the stretch.

“I thought this team was capable of making it (to the NCAAs) from the very beginning,” said Smith. “They’ve been up and down, but they’re ready to go. They’ve been playing pretty well.

“It was finally just the consistency of being able to get on a field and playing all the time that helped turn it around instead of being indoors all the time because of the weather.”

BSU and Tufts will meet for the first time since 1994 when they squared off in an ECAC tournament game during Smith’s first season with the Bears.

The Jumbos won the New England Small College Athletic Conference tournament last weekend after compiling a 2-0 record before rain forced it to be halted.

“They’ve got good pitching and they hit the ball, pretty much the same as us,’’ said Smith. “If we can minimize the mistakes and get good pitching, we’ll do fine.”

Tufts’ roster includes senior pitcher Derek Miller of Whitman, who is 3-1 with a 1.84 ERA in eight starts, and sophomore Billy Collins of Hanson, who has appeared in 10 games.

The BSU-Tufts winner will play on Thursday at 4:30 p.m. against the winner of a game between fourth-seeded MIT and fifth-seeded Rhode Island College. If the Bears lose the opener, they will play at 9:30 a.m. on Thursday against MIT or RIC.

Wheaton College, the No. 3 seed, is playing sixth-seeded St. Joseph’s of Maine at 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday while second-seeded Western New England meets seven-seeded Husson at 8 p.m.