Baseball blows opportunity to take Game 1 of Athens Regional

Three outs.

As much of a grind as the first game of the Athens Regional was for Boston College on Friday afternoon, second-seeded BC had the lead needing just three outs to take Game 1.

But, third-seeded Liberty scored two runs off reliever Gavin Soares in the top of the ninth and the Eagles ultimately fell 4-3.

Three solo home runs – two from Julio Solier and one from Jack Toomey – weren’t enough. Ace AJ Colarusso didn’t have a single clean inning and gave up 10 hits, yet only gave up two runs with two walks and six strikeouts in seven innings.

“I just play the game I love, to be honest. It’s weird to say, but I don’t really care what I do. I just like winning. That’s all that matters to me. I put my praise to God and hit those home runs for the team, not only for me. I play for them. I don’t really play for me,” said Solier.

Down 2-1 heading to the bottom of the seventh, BC got a lead off pinch-hit single from Danny Surowiec and he was immediately pinch ran for by Ben Williams. After a Carter Hendrickson pop out, he was caught stealing on a ball in the dirt after getting a bit of a bad jump. Seconds later, Solier launched his second home run of the day to right field, tying the game at 2-2 instead of giving BC a 3-2 lead.

Soares came on in the eighth and quickly got the BC bats back up. Following a Nick Wang fly out to center, Toomey hit a rocket line drive to right that barely cleared the fence at 314 feet, stunningly handing BC that 3-2 lead.

Soares was back out now three outs away from securing the win. Liberty immediately hit back-to-back singles, with the second one getting away from a sliding Hendrickson in center – where he probably could have gotten in front of it instead – allowing the tying run to advance to third and the hitter to reach second. A chopper to second quickly tied the game again at 3-3 and allowed the go-ahead run to take third. Moments later, the infield was back while the lines were in. On a chopper to short, the throw home from Solier was just a tad towards the first base side. Gunnar Johnson couldn’t corral it to tag the sliding go-ahead run. The Flames had a 4-3 lead.

Soares got out of any more damage and the Eagles threatened in the bottom of the ninth as Johnson was hit by a pitch to lead off. Esteban Garcia pinch ran for him and moved to second on a sac bunt by Williams. Hendrickson and Solier followed with fly outs to center though, locking up the win for Liberty.

The Flames jumped out to an immediate 2-0 lead in the top of the first. BC couldn’t get much going against their ace Ben Blair (7.0 IP, 8 H, 2 R, 0 BB, 7 K) until Solier’s first home run in the bottom of the fifth.

“First of all, I thought that was exactly what I expected coming into this situation. I thought what their starter did was basically what we prepared for,” manager Todd Interdonato said. ” thought he was really good. I don’t think we got the lead off until the ninth. I felt like every time we had a chance, it was really giving us an opportunity to create a rhythm. Obviously, Julio [Solier] got two balls out of the park. Jack [Toomey] got one out of the park, which we know we’re capable of. Then, between the eighth and the ninth, I thought AJ [Colarusso] in the seventh was electric, getting out of there. We were having a conversation about letting him go back out. I thought the gap was really good. They had two balls in play, runner on third, less than two outs and we had an opportunity in the ninth but couldn’t cash it in.

“I think it was a really good game, and it hurts beyond this end of it.”

During his mid-inning interview in the fifth with ESPN, Interdonato got emotional speaking about a former Birdball player – Chris Kowalski (2010) – who is going throw a difficult medical situation right now.

“He’s going through it right now. (Chris) had a 10.5 hour surgery two days ago. ‘Killer we love ya and we’re here for ya,” he said while clearly fighting back tears.

Now, after such a surprisingly fun and historic season for the program – that now appears to have a little extra meaning as well – it’s in danger of ending abruptly on Saturday. BC will play the loser of the LIU and Georgia game at noon, with the loser going home.